MY REVIEW:
I am one of those people who has a hard time with blood and violence. I tend to find an excuse to leave the room when I think something disturbing is about to happen in a TV show or movie. At the very least I close my eyes until it is past. I even had a hard time when Skully performed an autopsy in the X-Files. Somehow I had overlooked the caution about graphic descriptions of crime scenes in my blog review invitation. Because of this, I found myself wanting to close the covers of The Knight and forget that I had promised to review it. But being the conscientious person I am, I persisted and read the entire book. Fortunately, I found that I had already passed the scenes that disturbed me the most.
The Knight is a psychological suspense thriller that contains graphic crime scenes and enters the warped mind of the killer. It is a masterfully written novel that takes time from the fast moving plot to examine personal relationships of the characters aside from the investigation. The author’s timing is excellent – just when things start to get really intense, he lets the reader take a little breather before getting back into the fray. The conclusion of The Knight was a total surprise to me. If there were any clues along the way, I totally missed them. The Knight ended with a couple of unresolved situations – probably to make you anticipate the next installment.
Since The Knight is promoted as Christian fiction, I would have liked to have seen a little more spiritual content and a little less of the graphic gore but those are my personal preferences.
Available August 2009 at your favorite bookseller from
Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
The Knight, the third installment in his bestselling series of thrillers, is full of the chilling twists and adrenaline-laced action that readers have come to expect from James.
The Knight picks up in The Bowers Files series, starring FBI criminologist Patrick Bowers, who is assigned to tracking the country’s most dangerous killers. But when he is called to his most disturbing crime scene yet, Bowers begins to realize that this criminal mastermind has actually been tracking him.
To get to the bottom of this cold-blooded case, Bowers uses his cutting-edge investigative techniques to decipher the evidence and discovers that the murderer has been using an ancient manuscript as a blueprint for his crimes. This sends Bowers on a race against time to stop the killer before he takes his next victim in another grisly crime.
But even as he is working to crack the clues of this bloody trail, Bowers finds himself stumped by another matter: An old murder case haunts him, causing him to question himself and wonder which is more important—truth or justice. The answer might set a killer free or change Bowers into a criminal himself.
Keeping readers guessing until the very end, James has earned rave reviews from the likes of Publishers Weekly, which called his thrillers “a wild ride with a shocking conclusion.” The Knight offers readers more of the same, as the satisfying follow-up to his previous bestselling psychological thrillers in The Bowers Files series, The Pawn and The Rook.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Steven James is one of the nation’s most innovative storytellers and a bestselling author. He has written more than twenty books and is a full-time speaker, having appeared more than 1,500 times throughout North America, Europe and Asia since 1996.
His first mystery thriller, The Pawn, has already hit the bestseller lists and is a finalist for the 2008 Christy Awards. On August 1, 2008, his second book, The Rook, joins the high-octane thriller series, The Bowers Files. A third book, The Knight, was released in August 2009.
James has had many outlets for his creativity. He holds a Master of Arts in Storytelling. In 1997, when he completed this degree, he was one of only a hundred people in the world with such a degree.
For years, James has focused on crafting nonfiction books that explore and broaden the connections of story, imagination, and Christian spirituality. He has recently contracted several more titles with Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group. His recent nonfiction books include Sailing Between the Stars and the critically acclaimed Story: Recapture the Mystery, which received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. He has been honored with six national awards for his writing and storytelling, including a nomination for an ECPA Gold Medallion Book Award.
In addition to his books, James has written hundreds of articles and stories that have appeared in over eighty different magazines and publications, including Writer’s Digest and Guideposts for Teens.
James lives and writes in eastern Tennessee near the town of Jonesborough, the heart of the modern storytelling revival. He likes rock climbing and science fiction movies. When he’s not writing or speaking, he enjoys spending time with his wife and three daughters.
