Deception Book Review

Deception is Book 3 in Randy Alcorn’s Ollie Chandler series.

IN A DARK ROOM punctured by a bare hundred-watt bulb, two newspaper clippings on the card table appeared whitish gray, four others dim and yellow. Agile fingers arranged them chronologically so the handiwork could be better displayed. Should they be placed in a scrapbook? What if they were found? Of all places, surely no one would try to break into this one. The world’s full of stupid people, but not that stupid. Most of the people in the clippings had been stupid. But over the years, one by one, they’d been abruptly liberated of their stupidity. And the world had been liberated of them. A penciled list of names dropped to the table, by the playing cards, next to the clippings. It was time for another stupid person to go away. But which one? The liberator brooded thirty minutes, forearm bulging, squeezing hard a small object. Finally, one name rose to the top. The mastermind wrote the name down, then covered it with the ace of spades.

The thing that came across the strongest for me in Deception was its uniqueness. It is unlike any other book that I have read. Even Deadline (which is book 1 in the series) was very different to Deception. Also, each book is complete in itself so there is no need to read the books in order. Randy Alcorn has this amazing sense of humour which is littered throughout the pages providing constant entertainment. I also like the way it is written entirely from a man’s perspective; (Ollie Chandler the homicide detective) his personality, character and struggles coming through to make the novel seem more real. It kept me guessing until the very impressive and surprising ending.

The reason why I only gave Deception a 7/10 rating was because I found it very hard to get into until about half way through the book. It could just be a personality clash (like I said earlier, Randy’s way of writing is extremely unique), but for me, it’s like committing suicide if you haven’t been ‘grabbed’ by the book by at least the 2nd chapter. I think most of the introduction was necessary to establish the characters fully, but it did seem slightly too long to do so.

Overall, a great read and I also loved how Randy can’t help but throw in spiritual references (he is after all also the author of The Ishbane Conspiracy and Lord Foulgrin’s Letters) throughout the book. It really made me think, and gave me some great ideas for sharing my faith!

Rating: 7 out of 10

Click here for Randy Alcorn’s website.

Thunder of Heaven Book Review

The third book in the Martyr's Song Series...

What happens when the evil of terrorism collides with the love of God? Deep in the Amazon jungle a young American woman and the son of plantation owners fall madly in love. For Tanya and Shannon, life is a paradise most only dream about. But today paradise ends. The jungle has hatched more than idyllic love. It has also spawned insidious evil. An evil shrouded in a plot so diabolically brilliant that all of America will be brought to her knees at the hands of a few terrorists. The plan is executed to perfection; America’s worst fears have dawned. Nothing stands in the way of terrible destruction. Except for the love of one woman. Step into the pages of a story taken from tomorrow’s headlines. A story about the true power found in the face of all our fears. The power of love.

I love the way Dekker brings out his characters and works on their personalities. You almost feel by the end of the book that you could know them as intimately as a person in real life. This was what I loved about Thunder of Heaven. I also love the way that a fictional story can speak volumes about real life. Sometimes we need to open our eyes a bit more to see what’s really going on outside of our cosy living room. Thunder Of Heaven is an intriguing story of what can lie beneath the surface of a seemingly picture-perfect world and if left unchecked, what atrocities evil can commit. Thankfully for me, as I despise unhappy endings, Dekker lets good win out as he does in all of his books. I must admit though, the ending did seem a bit far-fetched. But then, who can honestly understand the power of that one small word… love? An emotion, a verb, a noun, all rolled into one and perfectly describing the very essence of God and what He’s about.

So if you’re up to the challenge, I dare you to open this book and see what it’s all about.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Click here to visit Tek Dekker’s website.

Messiah, The First Judgement Book Review

The Chronicles Of Brothers trilogy traces three archangel brother, Michael, Gabriel, and Lucifer, and their harrowing journey from the flawless world of the palace chambers in the first heaven through Lucifer’s banishment with his fallen host to Perdition. Only one can put a stop to Lucifer’s malevolent plans, Lucifer’s arch adversary, the Nazarene.

This is the second novel in Wendy Alec’s Chronicles of Brothers series, and in my opinion, much better than the first book (click here to read the review of ‘The Fall of Lucifer’).

Compelling, at times heart-wrenching and extremely challenging, Wendy Alec takes you on a journey that is like no other; the story of Christ’s ultimate sacrifice for his beloved race of men. She weaves a complex tapestry of descriptions of fallen angels, the Nazarene, Christos, the angels, and man.

The only issues I had with this book is that it is incredibly wordy, in that it uses big words that most ‘normal’ people wouldn’t typically bring up in everyday conversation. Keep a dictionary beside you because I guarantee you will need it! Also I found it jumped a little too often between eras.  I simply could not keep up and found it a little difficult to follow the storyline. Apart from that, this is an incredibly well-written story of the battle between Lucifer and the Nazarene and the Christos’s one act of love towards his favorite species.

 Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Click here to visit Alec’s Chronicle of Brothers site.

The Fall of Lucifer Book Review

Three Archangels…
Three Brothers…
One Turned Renegade.
A sweeping epic of origins and mysteries. The Fall of Lucifer tells a tale older than the universe itself. Set in opulent palaces and frightening hell worlds, this is a timeless saga of doubt, of demons and Angelic Warriors. Of obsessive love and treason, and of an ancient evil that knows no bounds.
Soon the universe itself will be rocked by war…
A war between three angelic brothers…
A war fought for the greatest purpose in the universe…
That war for the race of men.

This is the first of Wendy Alec’s Chronicles of Brothers, and the thing that instantly struck me about this book and its 292 pages, was how shockingly real it plays out. Writing from the perspective of the heavenlies is certainly no easy undertaking, yet the way Alec breathes life into the characters and carries their personalities with such ease makes the book read more like a true-to-life biography than a fictional story. Where it branches into a part with some angelic scientists was a little odd, but it allowed Alec to show some stunning facts about the human race.

Be warned that you will be wanting a dictionary handy while you read, as Alec’s vocabulary is rather expansive. In most novels I find myself wanting to look up a few words over the course of the book, whereas in The Fall of Lucifer I was checking words at least 10 times a chapter. Also be wary that there are a myriad of characters interweaving their stories through this book, and you probably won’t catch the significance and meaning of them all on the first read.

But were these lengthy descriptions and host of characters what caused me to give it a rating lower than 5? Surprisingly no, they are actually rightly fitting to the requirements a story of this nature needs, and I came to greatly appreciate the attention to detail and the poetic writing before story’s end. The reason for my rating is that I felt the book didn’t have as much of a climax at the end as I would have liked, and some parts were quite slow.

Don’t get me wrong, it was tense and sets you up for the sequel nicely. I actually think that my problem with it lies more with the fact that the scenes would be so much more real on the silver screen, when you are completely immersed in the atmosphere rather than reading from a comfortable seat in your lounge. Bring on the motion picture!

So does it come with a personal recommendation? Absolutely. There’s a lot of mixed reviews about it, but it is really something you have to make up your own mind about. If you were deeply moved by The Passion of the Christ, I would say that this book will most likely lead you down a very similar path of insight, into not just the existence of Christ’s love, but the overwhelming depth of it. Even when it is being hurled back in His face. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what it’s all about.

Reviewed by Stephen Garton, Rating: 9/10
Click here to read a review of the second book - Messiah