Adam

Adam, by Ted Dekker

We got this book at the store several months ago, and one had a damaged cover. So, it sat on our counter for a while. While idly waiting for UPS and Fed Ex to arrive so I would have something to unpack, I opened it up.

After we had to send the damaged one back to the publisher, I went for some time without knowing the end of the story. I finally went to the library and found it, and devoured it.

The book is a thriller, so like all thrillers, you can't put it down. It is about an FBI agent who is hunting a serial killer. The killer kills the FBI agent at about chapter four. Now, you might ask, "What kind of book kills the main character on page 42?" Well, the main character dies, and is revived with CPR and a defibrillator. Through out the book, he is tortured by his experience after death, and by the simultaneous knowledge that he cannot remember anything, including the face of the killer. So, he kills himself a few more times to see if he can trigger the memory. I say that flippantly, but it really is quite intriguing. I know that I, for one, would never have thought to kill my main character at all, much less more than once. And it is done in such a way as to be believable, something that could happen with only a tiny stretch of the imagination.

In the end, the book is about more than just a serial killer. It is about whether or not there is life after death, whether this world is all there is out there, and what is the real role of established religion in our lives?

And of course, there are a few hair raising scenes that, to put it simply and g-rated, "kicked butt."

I liked it. Ted Dekker's book Blink of an Eye (see my post: http://megcanread.blogspot.com/2008/04/blink-of-eye.html ) was better, in my opinion, but only because I prefer a mix of romance and thriller and philosophy, whereas this book was just straight up thriller. Don't get me wrong, there's a great romance between the main character and his wife, and there's philosophy as well. But those weren't the focus. The focus was as a thriller.

Still, I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes the thriller genre, anyone interested in a gripping story, and anyone interested in FBI agents, life and death experiences, spiritual topics, or the inner workings of a criminal mind.