The Monstrance Author:David McGill The story of a mysterious, stolen monstrance and its impact on the lives of two Auckland Westies as uptight New Zealand crubles into the swinging sixties. The monstrance, called the Tears of Christ because of supposed miraculous powers, is a vessel for the presentation of the Blessed Sacrament to the Catholic faithful. A Kiwi soldier souveni... more »rs the vessel at war’s end in Yugoslavia, back home tossing it into a top cupboard of his new West Auckland state house. His son Steve McCann makes an enemy of playground bully Delaney as he befriends nervy Croatian immigrant Denko Petrovich, whose father has come here in pursuit of the monstrance. Recovering on Waiheke Island from their parents’ deaths, a chance discovery shatters their island idyll and sets them off on a quest for the monstrance and their own identities. In Sydney, Vienna, Yugoslavia and Rome they survive OE of the edgy kind. A London drug bust deports them back to Auckland and their old island haunt, its easy ways complicated by hard drugs and hippy communes. The story hurtles to a fiery conclusion in the sea-cave where they first encountered love, religion and mortal danger. David McGill’s previous suspense novel Whakaari was described by the Sunday Star-Times as ‘a real ripper’, by the NZ Listener as a ‘fiery volcanic tale’.« less