cover image The Knowledge of Good and Evil

The Knowledge of Good and Evil

Glenn Kleier. Tor, $24.99 (416p) ISBN 978-0-7653-2377-4

Kleier's sometimes uneven, but undeniably gripping second spiritual thriller is bound to provoke just as many arguments as his controversial first novel, The Last Day (1998). Ex-priest Ian Baringer, who works as a paranormal investigator on the L.A. late-night talk show Probing the Paranormal, devises a plan to contact his late parents, who died in a horrific accident when he was a child, by putting himself into a near death experience, an experiment that psychologist Angela Weber, the talk show's host and Ian's lover, adamantly opposes. Ian and Angela race around the world just steps ahead of several members of a secret Christian organization, Ordo Arma Christi (the Order of the Weapon of Christ), who are trying to kill them before Ian can actually prove the existence of an afterlife. This is the first of a trilogy, and Kleier's many fans will only hope that they won't have to wait more than a decade again for the next installment. (July)