If I Were The Last Man Alive, by John Long (Jawbone Publishing)

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If I Were The Last Man Alive takes an intriguing, albeit not altogether new, concept and puts an interesting spin on it.

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Jamie Miller, a young pastor and recent widower, survives a cataclysmic extra-stellar event that wipes out nearly all animal life on Earth. Shielded by multiple protective barriers in a bank vault, our hero emerges to the unexpected stillness of a world devoid of people. After the inital shock, Jamie sets about stockpiling supplies for his future, whatever that may be, all the while dealing with not only his sudden solitude, but also the loss of his dear wife--a loss he's never quite gotten over.

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Author John Long takes us on a reading journey similar to what we experienced with Tom Hanks, in Castaway, only in an developed urban environment that is now decaying due to the lack of humans to maintain it. We're given detailed insight into Jamie's thought processes on what becomes important to survive, and--sometimes to our surprise--what becomes trivial. He wonders if he is the sole survivor on Earth, and, if so, why? We delve into Jamie's psychological, theological and emotional ruminations on his predicament, as they impact on his will and efforts to live on.

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Does anyone else survive? Is Jamie to make this journey by himself? You'll have to read it to find out.

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John Long wrote If I Were The Last Man Alive as an anniversary present to his wife. What a neat gift!

Quote of the Week

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How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. - Henry David Thoreau
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Sober Justice, by Joe Hilley (River Oak)

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Mr. Hilley is probably tired of being compared to John Grisham. But, hey, there are worse authors to be compared to, no?

Sober Justice is a solid, well-written crime novel with an interesting spiritual twist. Our hero, Mike Connolly is a lawyer whose life is pretty much in the toilet. Hooked on gin, divorced, estranged from his daughter and living with an exotic dancer, he’s not the stereotypical protagonist in a Christian novel. Mike is assigned a case by a judge who considers it to be cut-and-dried: a black man with a felony record accused of capital murder in the death of a prominent citizen. But, as Mike digs into the case, oddities begin showing up almost immediately. As you’d expect, he embarks on a twisting and perilous road to discover the truth about the crime. His investigative efforts are both inhibited and, at the same time, oddly enhanced as he discovers himself —or perhaps better, is discovered (you’ll see what I mean)—at the same time.

Mr. Hilley takes us on an incredibly detailed journey through the city of Mobile Bay in deep South bayou country as you follow Mike’s steps in uncovering evidence and protecting his client from a corrupt legal community. We learn as much about the local environment of the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ as we do about the legal processes constraining his capital murder case. Intricately researched and intensely written, we sweat with Mike in the relentless heat and humidity of the Gulf coast, burn with frustration as he is beset at both the personal and professional levels by those who have no confidence in him, and muse with him as he wonders what God is trying to tell him through spiritual trials and revelations that come at the most unexpected times and in the most unexpected ways.

This is a must-read for those who enjoy a good crime thriller coupled with a unique story of redemption. Sober Justice is the first in the Mike Connolly Mystery series. According to Mr. Hilley’s Web site, this book is currently out of print, but there are still some copies available by ordering through the Web site.

Great story. Worth waiting for.

House of Dark Shadows, by Robert Liparulo (Thomas Nelson)

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This is my first foray into the young adult thriller genre, and I entered with guarded expectations. Modern young adult readers have been conditioned to supernatural worlds largely without boundaries through the imaginations of writers such as JK Rowling and Lemony Snicket. Therefore, the Christian writer nudging this genre must marry other-worldly story lines into a Christian world view gingerly, as there exists the danger of contorting one or the other beyond reason in the attempt to achieve a believable, peaceful coexistence between them.

In House of Dark Shadows, Robert Liparulo unfolds an intriguing tale of horror and adventure, capturing the teenage perspective wonderfully through the mind of 15-yeard old Xander King. Xander and his family have moved from their LA home to a backwoods upstate community where his father has accepted a high school principal’s job. They move into an old Victorian-style house that has a dark history, one that it immediately begins to relive. Strange things begin to happen to Xander’s family, things that lead to a reenactment of the horrific event that lent the house its notoriety.

Mr. Liparulo sets the stage, and acts out a couple of the scenes, that tickle the reader’s attention and forces the next page turn. Toward the end of this first installment of the Dreamhouse Kings series, the truth bursts out about the family and the house…but you’ll have to dig into the next volume, Watcher in the Woods, for any resolution. Yup, it’s gonna leave you hanging.

House of Dark Shadows is well written and very entertaining. I must confess, though, that I’m still waiting for any hint of the Christian perspective to emerge, however. It need not be blatant—in fact, it hopefully won’t be blatant—when it does emerge. However, as of the final page of this book, there’s no hint of such an attempt to achieve that believable coexistence. Perhaps that, too, is resolved in the next volume.

Quote of the Week

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Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it. - David Sedaris
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