Review – Waking Lazarus

Life is not pleasant for Jude Allman. Living in solitude, days gripped by a numbing paranoia ‘they’ are watching his every movement, Jude shuffles his way through life, wishing to be left in peace. The best he can hope for is a simple the worst a past threatening the sliver of quiet he’s created for himself in Red Lodge, Montana.

Working as a custodian in a local school, he’s left behind a life of sensationalism; living under the assumed name of Ron Gress. He has a son he loves but cannot touch, a past that won’t go away, and one simple mantra standing between what he is and what he used to be: Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

Jude isn’t like other people, a fact he’s known all his life. While some strive for significance, Jude wants to be like everyone else, but life will never be average for him. Nothing will ever be quite normal for someone who’s died three times, coming back to life each time with one haunting thought: nothing matters. There is no purpose, there is no reason, there is no Providence, there is no Other Side. Jude would like nothing better than to sit in his dark little corner of the world and let everything pass him by, but fate has different plans for him.

First of all, there is the young Kristina, arriving on his doorstep with all the worst symptoms of hero worship, spurned on by a belief that Jude has a destiny he’s ignoring. Despite his half-hearted rebuffs, she refuses to go away, turning up again and again like the proverbial ‘bad penny’.

Secondly, there are the visions suddenly intruding upon his solitary life, speaking of something more profound than he’s ever imagined, or is quite ready to accept. Why does he suddenly sense the death of others, and what’s he supposed to do about it? How can he save others when he’s barely able to save himself?

Then there is the string of kidnapped children, ripped from their homes by someone impossibly evil. A growing realization that he has a part to play in the grisly affair looms over Jude, however doing so means facing past memories long walled off, as well as placing his belief in something larger than himself, which since the death of his mother is impossible to do.

Finally, there is his son Nathan and the boy’s mother, Rachael. As the visions and glimmerings of his potential destiny transform him, the possibility of having a normal, loving relationship with a family brings the greatest ache to his heart. Jude has reached a point where he may be ready to commit his life to Nathan and Rachael, but how can he do that while having visions of death, jerked along by the strings of an unseen, unknowable destiny?

This is the novel Christian Fiction has been waiting for. Along with Dekker and Peretti, Hines gives the genre increased credibility as he crafts a tale that is imaginative, truly creative, as well as thought-provoking and edifying. Jude Allman, like Odd Thomas, (Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas, Forever Odd), and Johnny Smith, (Stephen King’s The Dead Zone), is a realistic, unlikely hero who simply wants to get through the day and have a normal life, much less save the world.

Hines lays enough plot twists to keep the reader guessing. Nothing is what it seems: not Jude, his father, Kristina, or the vicious Hunter who stalks the streets of this novel. Waking Lazarus is truly a tale told by a bard, a story-teller, a “tale-spinner”.

A nice touch also: Jude finds his gift alarming, frightening, overwhelming at times. The story doesn’t trivialize spirituality; reminding the reader that even given His love and mercy, the nature of God is more powerful than our pre-conceptions allow us to understand.

The only thing that could be improved in Waking Lazarus: if Hines chooses to write a second Jude Allman novel, it would be interesting to see it told from the first person narrative. In the hands of a talented writer, (which Hines clearly is), the first person narrative is a powerful tool. Imagine a novel starting with: My name is Jude, and I’ve seen the Other Side?