Book Review: Deception by Randy Alcorn
A few years ago, I read someone praising Randy Alcorn as one of their favorite authors, and I wondered what they were talking about. I had read his book Deadline, but I wasn’t too impressed with the writing. I think his writing skills have improved since he wrote that novel, the first of the Ollie Chandler series.
Being a picky reader who has quite a few classics tucked away in her reading repertoire, I am not usually a big fan of modern fiction. Some light reading, such as certain pocket paperback murder mysteries, has its place and those books can be forgiven for not having too much depth of plot or character, as long as the murderer is not too easily discerned until the last chapter. But I generally find much popular fiction, particularly that promoted in the CBD catalogs, to be a candidate for the trash bin (or for poking fun) rather than something to curl up with in the easy chair. Well, I’m sitting in my Lazy Boy recliner after just finishing Randy Alcorn’s book Deception.
This is a hard-boiled detective novel without the bad language and the fast forward parts. It also manages to have a Christian theme without too obviously hitting the reader over the head with that message, and without forcing an unbelievable resolution to every conflict with a syrupy happily-ever-after conclusion. The main characters are very well-drawn, though some of the minor characters are hard to keep straight as their personas are not so distinctly portrayed. I’m spoiled by those classics where character is concerned, but it’s much harder to create “real” people for a fictional story than it is to think up a good plot.
Ollie Chandler is the hero, a man who has experienced some tragedies in his life, particularly the loss of his wife. A homicide detective, he tells this tale in first person, and he does so with Rex Stout cynical humor, a tribute to one of Ollie’s (and Alcorn’s) favorite detective novelists. I laughed out loud several times at Ollie’s wry way of putting things. Some of his best moments are when he goes toe-to-toe with the police chief, a man whom he does not admire and who returns the sentiment. Ollie frequently gets called to his office, where he leaves sports magazines stuffed under the couch cushion in the waiting room knowing that he’s in for a long wait every time, only to be rewarded with a dressing down filled with tired clichés.
“What’s that smell?” He leaned down, two feet from my face.
I ran through the options: coffee, beer, smoke from Rosie O’Grady’s pub, Limburger cheese on my morning muffin, Jade East, English Leather Lime. Since I hadn’t worn the last two since I was a junior higher, I finally said, “My gum? Black Jack?”
“It smells terrible. And it leaves a black film on your teeth.”
“That’s licorice.”
“I’ve been looking through your file,” he said. “Before I took over, you were cited for ‘inappropriate levity.’ Do you recall why?”
“It would be hard to pinpoint.”
“During Christmas season you answered your phone, ‘Ho, ho, ho…homicide.’”
“Oh yeah.”
Ollie marches to his own drummer, but because of his friendship with two Christian men, Jake and Clarence, who work for the local paper, he is confronted with the facts in a very personal way. He deals with facts in his job, and he is investigating a murder which has many confusing clues, many of which make him confront his own personal problems, both at work and at home, so that he has to confide more in his friends to make sense out of it all. They use that as an opportunity to confront Ollie with his anger with God, pointing out that it’s hard to be angry at someone you say you don’t believe in. In light of the atheist arguments that are once again cropping up everywhere, there are quite a lot of helpful apologetics woven into this book as Ollie’s friends lovingly and patiently confront his bitterness, his drinking problem, and his questions about why God allows suffering.
Like many Christian teachers and writers, Alcorn’s ministry has focused on one topic more than others, though he does address many issues. One of his main concerns is to help Christians think of Heaven as a real, physical place, not just some netherworld where we float around blissfully with not much to do, though we are somehow in a better place. He has some very non-Platonic ideas about Heaven, including what he calls an “intermediate state” when our pre-resurrected souls reside there. This is part of Deception, where we hear from several loved ones of characters in the story who are watching their drama take place on earth. Alcorn says he wants readers to understand that we must live in the light of eternity. The conversations of those heavenly saints who want Ollie to embrace salvation are very compelling. You can’t read it and not think about the ones you love on earth, who may not know Christ, and those who you know you will see again one day in Heaven.
One thing that made this book special for me is its setting in Portland, Oregon. The murder victim is a professor at the school where I had my one-year college career, and Jake and Clarence work at a paper which has a different name, but which is obviously the place where my father worked for many years as an editor. Many places mentioned were quite familiar to me, and I recalled vividly as I read, the days when I was 18 years old and weighing about 100 pounds, walking alone down toward Burnside every afternoon, toward the area where the bums hung out, to catch the bus for my hour ride back home, hoping to get a seat near the beginning of the line. Yikes!
I didn’t have the same food memories as Ollie, and he mentioned food a lot. I recommend you keep a bottle of Tums nearby if you decide to read this book. You may get indigestion as you read about Ollie’s eating habits, but I think you will still like him a lot, and his dog, Mulch, too. In fact, I like Ollie so much I may give Deadline another chance and pick up Dominion to read, too, after Gracie finishes with it. This book is gritty without being gratuitous, a refreshing thing in a time when you can’t even look at a magazine cover in the grocery store without feeling guilty. I think Alcorn has shown that tough topics can be discussed in a novel without resorting to bad language and steamy scenes.
(I notice that Alcorn is speaking at next year’s Resolved conference. Does anybody know more about his theology?)
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