The Priest’s Graveyard by Ted Dekker

Two abandoned souls are on the hunt for one powerful man. Soon, their paths will cross and lead to one twisted fate.
Danny Hansen is a Bosnian immigrant who came to America with hopes of escaping haunted memories of a tragic war that took his mother’s life. Now he’s a priest who lives by a law of love and compassion. It is powerful men and hypocrites who abide by legal law but eschew the law of love that most incense Danny. As an avenging angel, he believes it is his duty to show them the error of their ways, at any cost.
Renee Gilmore is the frail and helpless victim of one such powerful man. Having escaped his clutches, she now lives only to satisfy justice by destroying him, regardless of whom she must become in that pursuit.
But when Danny and Renee’s paths become inexorably entangled things go very, very badly and neither of them may make it out of this hunt alive.
Judge not, or you too will be judged.
Many of us have judged people, me being one of them. Ever heard of the saying, “Judge not lest you be judged?” Best-selling author of The Bride Collector, Ted Dekker, reminds us of this in his latest thriller, The Priest’s Graveyard.
Ted says that he thinks that this is his greatest thriller… I agree with him. It is something that you would expect from Ted, yet totally different. Different than all his other novels.
The first thing that readers will notice is that this one is written in the first person female. It is the second time Ted has done the first person point of view, the first one being Immanuel’s Veins, but is the first time he has done it in the female perspective. Some of you may wonder if this is doable for a male author to do this and making it believable. Yes, it is believable and Ted did a great job with it that, in fact, it felt like that a female was really telling the story.
The plot was different than any of Ted’s other novels. No FBI detective going after a serial killer this time, folks. Oh, no. This time, the main character, Renee, asks him for help when she decides to go after her rescuer, Lamont, disappears.
Renee and Danny are, I believe, some of the most complex and believable characters that Ted has ever penned. Danny is now one of my favorite Dekker characters now. Renee is definitely up there too.
Some people shy away from Ted’s books because of the violence and many people stop reading because they believe he has gone to far. Well, if you are one of those people, I am sorry to say that you will not want to read this one. Some of these scenes are very descriptive and gruesome. Not overly so to the point where I had to stop and take a while to resume reading it or skip the parts. I don’t think Ted has ever gone that far.
Ted will definitely get a good amount of additions to his already immense fan base when this one comes out.

The Priest’s Graveyard will be released 4/19/11. I have received an Advanced Reader’s Copy for review provided by the publisher for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are mine.