Stella Thibodeaux is a 19-year-old prostitute, plying her trade from her mobile home parked on the outskirts of a traveling carnival. Her best friend is an ancient fortune teller, also with the carnival. And, when Stella has sex with a client, that man is instantly cured of whatever might afflict him.

News of these miraculous occurrences spreads quickly, first to a priest who takes the confession of a man who was healed but now feels guilty for cheating on his wife with a hooker, all the way up to the Vatican, where papal excitement about the potential for a legitimate saint quickly cools when the pontiff learns of the saint's occupation and method of healing. Given the facts, the Pope and his inner circle of cardinals decide they can work with a martyr more easily than they can a living saint with such questionable methods. So, the Pope quickly dispatches of a pair of sibling assassins -- twins Michael and William Bronski -- to deal with the matter.

Father James Brown -- the priest who initially reported the miracle whore to his superiors, and yes, the author makes endless jokes about his name -- feels responsible for the danger he has put Stella in, so he puts his former life as a Navy SEAL to good use to find and protect her. Meanwhile, a local newspaper reporter sniffs out the story and, at his editor's urging, sets out to break the news and win a Pulitzer in the process. That, of course, puts the reporter on the Vatican's hit list as well (which seems like a way to make other news agencies sit up and take notice, rather than bury the story as intended).

That's the setup for Holy F*ck, a new novel by Swiss author Joseph Incardona. Originally titled Stella et l'Amerique and published in French in 2024, the book was reissued this year, translated into English by Sam Taylor.

There are a few jarring problems, such as a news article, purportedly written by a professional, award-winning journalist, with lines such as this: "Personally, I would tend to believe the testimonies of the men I spoke with, because they struck me as being completely sincere." Assuming any reporter would write such tripe, no self-respecting editor would allow it to pass into print.

Readers are also expected to care about characters who are never developed beyond the superficial. Character development is not one of Incardona's strong suits. Even Stella and Father Brown, the main protagonists in the story, are still fairly two-dimensional by the end. And, with the exception of Brown, the Catholic Church is presented uniformly as evil.

On the very first page, the author informs us that Stella "wasn't exactly beautiful," but he spends much of the latter half of the book waxing poetically about her great beauty.

More problematic, in my view, the book is rife with humorous potential but the anticipated comedy never surfaces. I wasn't expecting hijinks at the level of a Terry Pratchett or Christopher Moore, but the overall style feels on par with the works of, for instance, Carl Hiaasen and Tim Dorsey. But, where those authors know how to leaven drama with wit, author Joseph Incardona leaves that crucial ingredient on the table.

The book's title certainly suggests he had humor in mind when he wrote it. So does the subtitle, Salvation Comes with a Body Count. As does the irreverent tone of much of the dialogue. But the book fails to be funny.

Given his more serious approach, Incardona's habit of addressing readers directly seems out of place. Take for example this opening to chapter 33:

I'm feeling slightly depressed as I begin this chapter. Words seem simultaneously vain and like the last bulwark against disaster. I kind of want to give up on this story even as I continue writing it. Not through any lack of imagination, but through simple inertia, the comfort of art for art's sake, a novel that will, little by little, lose its plot: an eminently literary (and therefore cowardly) tactic.

Or this paragraph, which definitely wants to be funny.

And since we are now on Chapter 40, one of the brothers' beloved even numbers, I propose that we take a break here and move on to Part Vi of this American crime novel written by a Swiss man.

Hell, at one point Brown tells Stella to call him Jimmy, rather than James, because "I should never have been given this name in the first place. The writer must be some sort of sick freak." See? Incardona obviously has some desire to be witty, but his attempts never land.

Holy F*ck is not a book I would have purchased but, when a review copy showed up in my mailbox unsolicited, I resolved to give its intriguing premise a try. (At just over 200 pages, it was not a huge time commitment, which is always something to consider when you have stacks and stacks of books waiting to be read.) And I'll give it this: it's an unusual plot that defies expectations. And yet, I came away from the book believing that it had fallen short of its promise; Incardona should have fine-tuned the story further before publication.

It's disappointing, because when I started the book, I really thought it had potential. By the end, I was definitely ready to move onto something else.

Holy F*ck reminds me in some ways of a book I read some 40 years ago: Charles Sailor's The Second Son, which has similar themes (without so much sex, and without any notion of humor). I think I have it on a shelf somewhere, so I should dig it up and see how they compare.

(OK, I found and reread Charles Sailor's book, and you should check out my comparison between Holy F*ck and The Second Son here.)