Fuse of Armageddon

Novelist Brouwer and Christian radio host Hanegraaff team up again (The Last Disciple) to write an absorbing thriller. Mulvaney Quinn is a hostage negotiator who specializes in Israeli-Palestinian disputes, while Kate Penner is a Nevada cop who suspects that Quinn committed a ghastly murder on her turf. She heads to Israel to extradite him, but just before the pair heads back to the U.S., Israeli intelligence begs Kate to let Mulvaney stay in Israel for just a few more days and negotiate a tricky hostage deal: a Palestinian group is holding a leading American evangelical pastor and 29 of his followers. The characters are generally well-drawn, and Kate is especially engaging (though her occasional missteps, like saying ""I don't speak Israeli,"" strike a false note). Kate and Mulvaney's attraction to one another provides a little spice, but never overshadows the political plot. The only irksome feature is Mulvaney being a widower, a character device fast achieving the status of cliche in the Christian thriller genre. This novel is notable because several of the characters explicitly and cogently criticize the premillennial dispensationalist theology that has shaped much of evangelical America's thinking about the state of Israel. Thus, Brouwer and Hanegraaff's latest is sure to both entertain and provoke.