"Certain Jeopardy" by Jeff Struecker and Alton Gansky

This book delivers on so many levels - I was floored. The action was great, but the depth of the characters made the book exciting. The story is fairly simple: the U.S. sends a team of elite soldiers to do some reconnaissance in Venezuela. "They" believe that a terrorist group is training extremists there... In actuality, the Venezuelans have captured an American nuclear scientist and want to trade him to the terrorists to help them develop WMDs. The Special Ops team may have to kill the scientist to prevent his knowledge from being used by the wrong people. This creates quite a dilemma for a certain member of the Special Ops team who happens to be a strong Christian - and he is already reeling from the death of an innocent person at the hands of his team.

To put it bluntly, no non-Christian author can write this story because it deals with themes that are uniquely Christian (such as the scenario described above). When you have talented writers with real-life experience in the subject matter, who write for a bigger purpose than just to astound the readers with explosions and action, you cannot go wrong.

I was pleasantly surprised by the over-arching Christian elements to the story. There was at least one scene in the book where the Gospel was clearly presented - and the Christians in the story (with one back-slidden exception) wear the name of Christ well.

But, seriously, the most amazing thing about the book was the way that I immediately had a heart-connection with the characters. They felt like real people going through real problems and displaying real emotion. (Not all of the conflict happens with guns and gadgets... there are other problems - family problems, health problems, etc). I read a lot of books, and let me tell you that few authors have the ability to make characters this real.

In short, I cannot WAIT to start reading "Blaze of Glory"! Struecker and Gansky have made a fan out of me in a BIG way.

A rock-solid 10 out of 10 stars!