PERSECUTION

A Lutheran pastor attempts to expose the persecution of Christians in Iran.

Stephen Grant isn’t your typical Lutheran pastor—he’s also a former Navy SEAL and CIA agent who still accepts clandestine missions for the United States. Grant realizes the absurdity of his life, one which only makes sense in the cinematic world of action adventures: “There aren’t too many of my fellow Lutheran pastors who wind up in the situations that I do.” Sometimes, Grant’s missions come directly from President Adam Links, to whom Grant serves as a kind of spiritual adviser. An organization Grant works with—the Lutheran Response to Christian Persecution—produces a documentary exposing the brutal persecution of Christians by the Iranian government. In order to uncover the prison where Christians are being held and rescue its victims, Grant joins forces with Caldwell, Driessen and McEnany International Strategies and Security, a firm led by Paige Caldwell, a former CIA partner and romantic flame. Paige is now secretly engaged to President Links. In the aftermath of their successful mission, the crew is invited to Jordan to meet with its royal family—the recently crowned King Salama seems eager to showcase his own progressive brand of Muslim nationalism and make common cause against Iran. However, internecine disputes within the royal family eventually endanger Grant and his colleagues, a predicament lucidly portrayed by Keating. The plot is vigorously paced, crammed with vividly depicted action and drama. And despite its convolutions—there are simply too many entangled subplots—the reader is never lost in this accessible tale of international intrigue. Yet the novel is also a tapestry of pulp paperback tropes as implausible as they are formulaic—only within this peculiar genre of popular literature does one find caricatures like Grant. A lack of believability makes the latest installment of a running series a bit of a chore.

A spy novel that has moments of brilliance but inspires incredulity more than excitement.