By: Philip Kerr
Posted: June 22, 2014
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.
Book Summary
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 FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Unit in Houston, confronts the violence generated by extremism within our nation’s borders every day. He sees hatred and destruction wrought by every kind of “ism” there is, and the zealots who kill in their names. Until now, he has always been a part of the solution—however imperfect—a part of justice. But when Gil discovers he played a key role in wrongly condemning an innocent man to death row, it shakes his faith—in the system, in himself, and in God—deeply. 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 who’s fallen into an inexplicable coma. Left and right, it seems Gil can’t escape the power of God and murder.
As Gil investigates both cases, he realizes that there may be a connection—answering his prayers in a most terrifying way.
by: Philip Kerr
Putnam
May 1, 2014
On Sale: May 6, 2014
Featuring: Gil Martins
432 pages
ISBN: 039916765X
EAN: 9780399167652
Kindle: B00G3L6KF4
Hardcover / e-Book