Empire's End

The much-published Jenkins (I, Saul) continues to mine the story of the apostle Paul in this disappointing tale. The famous conversion scene on the road to Damascus comes early and is hasty: "In that instant, my world changed," Paul says of his about-face. Much of the book is set in Arabia, where Paul lives with a community of others who follow the way of the recently crucified Jesus, and where Paul discovers a tragic connection to his past as a persecutor of those followers. Some conceits in this imaginative retelling succeed: a horse, Theo, miraculously carries Paul to Arabia, and the apostle Peter is well-characterized. But Paul gets into a romantic relationship that's just silly, and God's frequent speeches to him using phrases that appear in Paul's actual biblical letters is a pedestrian storytelling device. This will appeal only to Christians. (June)