Don Francisco Bay's debut novel, Impulse, introduces readers to Gunnery Sergeant Alvarez "Dutch" Petersen, a Marine who, after twenty-one years of service, loses his wife and eight-year-old son to a case of mistaken identity that remains unsolved. Rather than seek violent revenge, Dutch applies to a Catholic seminary and, six years later, is ordained as Father Alvarez Petersen. His first assignment is Mission Dolores in San Francisco, a parish struggling with dwindling attendance and the aftermath of abuse scandals.
When a woman confesses to allowing her husband to beat her children, Dutch is drawn into an investigation that reveals a network involving heroin, military-grade weapons, and a cleric using the diocese for personal gain. The novel's tension lies not in whether he can catch the perpetrator, but in what pursuing justice will cost the new self he has worked to build.
Bay's prose is spare and observational, treating grief as "the permanent weather" rather than a passing storm. The action, when it comes, is swift and impactful. The climax unfolds at Saint Mary's Cathedral during Mass, where tactical teams and news cameras capture Dutch's arrest, while a simultaneous raid occurs across town. Yet the story does not end there; Bay shows the system repairing itself, with a mysterious Vatican letter reassigning Dutch to San Diego, hinting at deeper forces at work.
The novel has been compared to works by Nelson DeMille, Daniel Silva, and Greg Iles, and is recommended for readers who appreciate fiction that engages seriously with faith. As Bay notes, "Dutch isn't a soldier pretending to be a priest, and he isn't a priest with a violent past he's outrun. He's both, permanently, and neither one lets the other off the hook."
Impulse is available in paperback, 304 pages, and is the first in the Recon Priest series. Its release comes amid ongoing public discourse about clerical abuse, the role of religious institutions in social justice, and the challenges faced by veterans transitioning to civilian life. By weaving these themes into a crime narrative, Bay offers a nuanced exploration of how individuals and institutions reckon with past failures and present dangers.
