First-rate supporting characters complement the sprightly pastor, who remains impeccable in this thriller.
In this seventh entry of a series, terrorists attacking Christians in the United States must contend with the proficient recurring protagonist armed with Scripture and a Glock.
When a bloody, nearly dead Fred “Freddie” Pederson stumbles into St. Mary’s Lutheran Church during a service, he has a message for his old SEAL pal Pastor Stephen Grant. Undercover for the FBI, Pederson just managed to escape an Islamic terrorist group planning strikes against “Christian infidels,” a specified target being Pastor Richard Leonard, son of another fellow SEAL. The warning’s unfortunately too late: men strapped with explosives walk into six churches in five states. Leonard, along with badge-carrying congregation members, fights off terrorists at St. Mark’s on Staten Island. But fearing Leonard will still be a target, Grant, who’s also a former CIA operative, offers pastoral assistance as well as protection. Meanwhile, an interrogated terrorist hints at additional attacks, putting many on high alert, including Paige Caldwell, Grant’s CIA partner, who now co-runs a private security firm. No one can foresee or prevent a subsequent assault that rattles the entire country. As a result, Grant and law enforcers are determined to ensure that no one else falls prey to terrorism on American soil. By now, fans of Keating’s (Wine into Water, 2016, etc.) thriller series will anticipate skillfully drawn characters. Grant, for one, is a considerate husband and unquestionably capable in action. But TV interviews with Leonard and Imam Anwar Abdullah bolster the tale by shedding positive light on both Christianity and Islam. The narrative’s swift momentum is retained even during profound moments, as in a scene in which terrorists debate their cause after murdering two men that’s intercut with clergymen reciting biblical passages. Though sequences of Grant or Caldwell and her team engaged in combat are exhilarating, the story’s brimming with everyday heroes. One political figure, for example, is rescued by a neighbor whose courage is measured by the hefty Desert Eagle gun he brandishes.
First-rate supporting characters complement the sprightly pastor, who remains impeccable in this thriller.Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5489-6418-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
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