Book Reviews

WARP: The Reluctant Assassin by Eoin Colfer

July 15, 2026May 21, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: An orphan from 1898 and a disgraced teen FBI agent from the present team up to survive (and hopefully defeat) a time traveling homicidal maniac.

Eoin Colfer is best known for writing the very good Artemis Fowl series (as you can see on the covers of any book of his that is not Artemis Fowl).

I read and really enjoyed the whole Artemis Fowl series, but I was not a fan of his adult oriented thriller Plugged and Colfer’s attempt at writing a sixth novel in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series was reviewed very poorly.

So if The Reluctant Assassin was not free on audiobook through the YA Sync program (two free audiobooks given away each week during the summer to encourage teen reading), I probably would not have picked it up.

Riley is the apprentice (kidnapped slave might be a better description) of Albert Garrick, an assassin and magician in 1898 London. Garrick is a person that loves killing, but he needs a small audience. So Riley has been forced to become his apprentice and witness all of his killings.

The book opens with Riley attempting his first assassination. Riley cannot go through with it and Garrick is forced to kill the old man they were paid to kill. That old man happens to be a refugee from the present, who invented a time machine and is hiding out in 1898 to keep it from being misused.

Lord Peter Views the Body by Dorothy Sayers (Peter Wimsey Mysteries #4)

May 20, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: A series of short stories about Lord Peter Wimsey.

It has literally been months since I started reading Lord Peter Views the Body. I am not really a fan of short story collections. I am not sure what I do not like about them as a category. I was inspired to go back and finish this book after reading another in the Her Royal Spyness series. (It is a modern cozy mystery series that is set at the same time as Sayers’ older Lord Peter Wimsey series and occasionally pays homage to Sayers.)

But in this case the Wimsey short stories just did not seem to develop the Lord Peter character. They reminded me more of what I do not like about Sherlock Holmes. There was conjecture and coincidence, and he solved crimes but except for a couple, most of them just seemed fairly dull. The spark that was in the first two books just seemed to be missing.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

July 15, 2026May 15, 2014 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: A haunting and beautiful novel. Shows what can really be done with suspense.

I have been a big fan of the 1940 movie Rebecca by Alfred Hitchcock. It is one of my all time favorite movies. But I had not read the book. It is a very highly rated book written just before the movie in 1938.

The story is that a young woman (who narrates the book, but is never actually named) marries a rich, older widower (Maxim de Winter). He brings her home to his estate where she is continually haunted by the first Mrs de Winter. This not really a ghost story, but rather the story of how the young bride feels compared to the other woman.

It is a psychological thriller. There is no violence, no sex, no bad language, but just a feeling of inferiority and tension that drives the book. The gender roles of the book are dated. And at times I just wanted the 2nd Mrs de Winter (or her husband) to pay attention to what was going on around them. But on the whole it stands up very well after 70 years.

Into the Fire by Jodi McIsaac (The Thin Veil #2)

May 13, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: Cedar returns to Tir na nOg with her husband Finn and daughter Eden to restart their lives after they defeated the previous evil King.

Last summer I picked up the first book in the series (Through the Door) on a whim. It had an interesting blurb and was cheap.

The series takes a single mom who discovers her daughter has the power to open a door to anyplace she can think of.

Through the first book Cedar finds the father of her daughter who left to protect her, the fact that her mother is not her mother and that she is really the daughter of a king and queen of another world of immortals that were ancient Gods of celtic lore.

Cedar, with her “˜gift of humanity’ was able to defeat the evil king, save her daughter and be reunited with her true love. It wasn’t a great book but it was an enjoyable enough beach read.

Into the Fire picks up again almost immediately. Cedar, Finn and Eden head to Tir na nOg to start a new life. But almost immediately she finds that the council has been infiltrated by Nuala (who had kidnapped Eden) in the first book. This comes to a head when Nuala tries to become queen and the only one that has a better claim to it is Cedar herself.

The Battle for the Beginning: The Bible on Creation and the Fall of Adam by John MacArthur

July 16, 2026May 12, 2014 by All Old Users

John MacArthur’s reasoning in The Battle for the Beginning is simple: a straightforward, “œliteral” reading of the Genesis creation text, considered solely on its own merits and unencumbered by modern evolutionary scientific theory (and, by extension, philosophical naturalism), clearly and reasonably describes a period of six, 24-hour days. As such, the earth and all its inhabitants, animals and humans, were created within one solar week. He walks carefully through the text and explains what happened on each day, how it happened (to the extent that he can exegete and extrapolate), and why evolutionary science does not explain the facts of creation.

Along the way MacArthur critiques some scientific principles that legitimately need challenging, such as uniformitarianism, the assumption that natural processes have always operated in the ways we observe today (which is neither measurable nor observable). His approach of setting Scripture as the primary guide to his understanding and letting the chips fall where they may is admirable, and I affirm the principle in general. MacArthur also does a fantastic job explaining the destructive effects of philosophical naturalism, which often goes hand in hand with the methodological naturalism of evolutionary science. However”¦

Royal Blood by Rhys Bowen (A Royal Spyness Mystery #4)

May 9, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: Georgie goes to a wedding in Transylvania. I am sure no bodies will turn up.

I am a big fan of fluff reading. So turn the noses up at the idea of a book that does not fully engage the mind or bring up deep ideas. I am certainly not opposed to big idea books. But you just can’t only read big idea books, or you are distorting part of the purpose of reading.

Her Royal Spyness series is a light cozy mystery series. They are set in the early 1930s with Georgie (the 34th in line to the throne) as the main character. Her family is broke and she is trying to make it on her own. But she keeps stumbling into (or being pushed by the Queen) into situations where she has to use her head to solve the mystery.

Jesus is Better than You Imagined by Jonathan Merritt

July 15, 2026May 8, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: Memoir as spiritual growth encouragement.

Jonathan Merritt is a journalist and writer. His two previous books, A Faith of Our Own (politics and culture) and Green Like God (Environmentalism) are more issue books. But Jesus is Better Than You Imagined is a memoir.

Jesus is Better Than You Imagined is mostly a book about Merritt’s life and what he has learned through his experiences. A few years ago I read a number of memoirs in a short period of time and I got a bit burned out by them.

The problem with memoirs is that they are so personal and because of the personal nature it can be hard to interact with them. And the very nature of memoirs (especially Christian ones) is that the author often seems to be so wise because they are processing what they have learned as part of the book, even though it is often long after the events recounted that the author was really able to fully process the events as they are being presented.

On the other hand, this type of spiritual memoir can really be edifying to read because we can see how God is working through circumstances for their good. Memoir and spiritual biography I think should be a regular part of any Christian’s spiritual reading. But there is a problem with too much of a good thing.

Discipleship in the Present Tense: Reflections on Faith and Culture by James KA Smith

July 16, 2026May 7, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: A series of essays on faith and culture.

James KA Smith is a philosophy professor at Calvin College and editor of Comment Magazine. He keeps coming across my radar screen but I have not read enough of his books. I picked up Discipleship in the Present Tense last year when it was released. It has taken me a nearly a year to get around to reading it, but it is worth the read.

I have had a long standing opposition to parts of Reformed Theology. But Smith makes me want to investigate wings of the Reformed world that are less focused on the newer ‘Restless and Reformed’ wing and more focused on the older full systems of the Reformed Tradition. (He is more interested in liturgy, the full life of the Christian and less focused on 5 points and cage fighting.)

In the series of 24 essays, Smith mostly is talking about the church’s relationship to culture. Some of the essays I have read before, such as the very good review of James Davidson Hunter’s book To Change the World which appeared in Books and Culture Magazine and I linked to in my review of Hunter’s book. But most were new to me.

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue/ The Untold Story of English by John McWhorter

July 16, 2026May 6, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: Every area of study has its rebels and story tellers. McWhorter’s is rebelling by claiming that English gained more from the Celts than others.

One of the joys of reading is picking up a book in a subject area that you know nothing about and just diving in.

I am going through a bit of reading malaise. I have found in the past that I need to read something completely different. And I have not been excited about my on-deck audiobooks. So I picked this up last week when it was on sale for $1.99 on audiobook with some promotional credits (making it free for me and still technically keeping to my buying no more than 1 book a month pledge.)

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue is about linguistics and the history of English. The subtitle is over reach and probably written with marketing in mind. But the basic book is five arguments about why we need to pay more attention to grammar in the history of English and less attention to borrowed words and etymology.

Everyone knows that English borrowed a bunch of Viking and French words as part of its development. McWhorter says that more important is the fact that English has borrowed a lot of grammar as well.

Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design by Stephen C Meyer

May 5, 2014 by All Old Users

A devastating critique of Darwinian and neo-Darwinian theories of life’s origins, and a rigorous defense of Intelligent Design as a legitimate and compelling scientific theory. Stephen Meyer is a philosopher of science, and he ably traced the discovery of DNA and its contemporary challenges in his previous book, Signature in the Cell.

Now, in Darwin’s Doubt, Meyer takes on the fossil record in the “œCambrian Explosion” and details the attempts by evolutionists to account for it. As it turns out, Charles Darwin himself recognized that the fossil record exposed a potentially fatal weakness in his new theory of natural selection, but one he assumed (not unreasonably at the time) that science, given enough time (pun intended), would fill in the gaps. Unfortunately, as our understanding of biology and genetics has increased exponentially over the last 150 years (and especially since the 1960s), the difficulties for Darwin’s theory have only gotten worse.