The Final Hour by Andrew Klavan
The Final Hour by Andrew Klavan is the fourth and last in a series of Christian fiction called the Homelanders series. The main character, Charlie West, is a teen who has decided to take a stand by agreeing to go undercover in a homegrown terrorist group in order to catch them and stop their plans to terrorize America. Throughout the series,the story takes us through an action packed adventure where we see how Charlie deals with basically being alone and on the run from both the police and from the terrorist group he infiltrated. With the exception of a few friends, Charlie has to deal with almost everyone thinking he is basically one of the bad guys. In this last book of the series, The Final Hour brings everything to closure and we the reader are finally able to see whether or not Charlie will succeed or have to live the rest of his life perceived as one of the enemies of America. This book subtlety allows the reader to see that Charlie and his sensei, Mike, are Christians and knowing that, as the reader we are to assume his values and everything he does is because of his relationship with Christ. I had mixed feelings about how little was attributed to Charlie being a Christian. I personally was expecting more of a testimony through the story itself and would have liked to see Charlie and his sensei, Mike, being established more as Christians throughout the series. The storyline and development of Charlie’s character made it seem that his values were more based in his training from karate than a sense of it being because he was a Christian. I will grant that some of it was implied in the story even though not as intensively as I would have liked for it to have been done. The books do include a nice set of discussion questions at the end of the book (reading group guide) which does make up for what I felt was not as strong of a testimony within the story itself. Regardless of what I would have liked to have seen with the development of Charlie’s character and despite some slow parts in the book, it still made a decent read especially in light of what fiction is out there for both young and older adults.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
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