FBI Agent Gil Martins is really good at this job. He is so good it makes him obsessive compulsive at times. Gil has a wife and son and they are good people who go to church every Sunday. The only problem is Gil's faith is not there anymore and he is faking it for his wife.
There is a serial killer in Houston killing the morally righteous. There is also an anti-Jewish group planning to kill as many as they can at the local Synagogues with missiles and people with anti church views are dying in mysterious ways. The pressure is mounting for Gil and he is not handling it well. He prays for God to give him strength and when he believes that God does not answer him it is the final straw in his wavering faith and he embraces atheism. While conducting these investigations he discovers God may have been listening and he should probably not have asked because the answer he is getting is not one he wanted.
Philip Kerr has brought together an interesting story and point of view to an age old argument that funnily enough I had just had with a friend of mine before I read PRAYER. Is God a God of love or one of wrath? I will now be handing PRAYER off to him to read.
PRAYER is a thriller with a story of criminals and catching them but the religious twist and how it is worked into the story is a great. It's not a religious book, it does work in the age old question of God and if he is/was a God of love as Christians now perceive him or a vengeful God as Christians of old believed. I enjoyed PRAYER and the Philip Kerr did a great job making this topic very enjoyable.
From New York Times-bestselling author Philip Kerr comes an
amazing departure: an intense psychological thriller, sure
to garner even more acclaim for this powerhouse author on
the rise.
Gil Martins, an agent with the FBIβs Domestic Terrorism Unit
in Houston, confronts the violence generated by extremism
within our nationβs borders every day. He sees hatred and
destruction wrought by every kind of βismβ there is, and the
zealots who kill in their names. Until now, he has always
been a part of the solutionβhowever imperfectβa part of
justice. But when Gil discovers he played a key role in
wrongly condemning an innocent man to death row, it shakes
his faithβin the system, in himself, and in Godβdeeply. It
even estranges him from his wife and son.
Desperate, Gil offers up a prayer. To know God is there, not
through a sign or physical demonstration but through the
strength to cope with his ever-growing, ever-creeping
doubts.
His problems become more than personal as things heat up in
Houston. A serial killer terrorizing the morally righteous
turns out to have religious motivations, upping the case
from homicide to domestic terrorism. A number of prominent
secular icons die or are grievously injured abruptly and
under suspicious circumstances, the latest of which is a New
Atheist writer whoβs fallen into an inexplicable coma. Left
and right, it seems Gil canβt escape the power of God and
murder.
As Gil investigates both cases, he realizes that there may
be a connectionβanswering his prayers in a most terrifying
way.
No excerpt available.
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