The Chase Leaves Nowhere to Run

The Chase by Susan Wales and Robin Shope

The Fiction Story:

Jill Lewis is a Washington, D.C. journalist on the run, both from something and to something. Accept she does not yet know what she is headed toward.

She is running away from dangerous men who do not like that she broke a story threatening a setting senator. Now Jill is the one who is threatened. As a result of her journalistic investigation, not only is her life is in danger, but her long time boyfriend leaves her, and she is fired from the newspaper where she works.

She has nowhere to run accept to her small hometown in Michigan, miles away from the trouble she had churned up in Washington. Or so she thought. At home, Jill finds that her troubles have not simply followed her, they preceded her! She is more involved with the case than she ever realized and she only has one option. To solve it.

Among the danger and the ongoing journalistic investigation, a new life for Jill emerges. She gets a job at the small town newspaper, meets old friends, family, goes to church, grows in her faith and reconnects with God. (to be explained below in the gospel-story side of the review) Jill even finds a new love interest, all of which causes her to rethink everything she had ever planned for her life. That is, if she can escape the danger that surrounds her.

By the time Jill gets to the bottom of it all, there are a few twists that need not be mentioned, less they spoil the chase. But something must be said about the chase so that potential readers will not be misled by the cover and the book description; this is not the action-packed, political thriller it may seem to be. It is just as much of a love story, maybe more so. That's right, "The Chase" is a double entendre. The meaning is stated in its most definitive form on the very last page. There it admits to the proverbial chase of love, when a man pursues a woman, in this line of inner monologue. "Instinctively, men are hunters. They're the ones that like to do all the chasing."

The Gospel Story:

I can't help but think that a christian fiction book called The Chase might have missed out on the larger implication of God's pursuit to seek and save the lost. As far as pursuits and chases go, the Christian aspect of this book came in a distant third, behind political thriller, which was behind love story.

There were frequent mentions of faith, prayer, and God, as well as a few Bible references here and there, all as a part of Jill's new emerging life. But all of it came off as a simple overlay on the larger story. That is to say, the story would have been the same without it. I wish the spiritual character changes were in the forefront, but I'll not criticize the book just because I'd have written it differently.

I will raise one red flag though. When Jill was asked directly if she was a Christian, here was her response. "Well - of course! I'm a good person, I believe in God, and I grew up in the church. But I've got to admit, I've had some doubts lately."

And here is why I did not care for that: It is the "good person" myth that I hate. It is true enough, in a worldly context, to say that someone is a good person, but not so in a Biblical context. Throughout the book of Psalms it is said that there is no one who is good, not even one. It is reiterated in the new testament. Romans 3: 11-12

The fact that we are no good is the reason we need a savior. If one starts from the position of being a good person, it would be easy to be confused by Christianity, unless it was relegated downward to be something far less than the gospel of salvation. It's no wonder Jill was confused about where her new-found-faith was leading her.

I would like to give the book the benefit of the doubt and say that the character was speaking within a context, perhaps of her own understanding and growth, but it really did not seem as such.

As a Christian, and a reader and author as well, I would like to say that we need to be far more careful not to display Christianity as a tag-on life-style, so that no one will think it is a simple overlay, as if the better we are as a person, the more transparent the overlay becomes.

Jill does a better job later in the story when she tells her editor at the newspaper that everyone is a sinner, implementing herself in that as well, maybe picking up on Romans 3: 23. There, now you have something dangerous to run away from, and I think you know where to run to! No, not the guy with the sandy-colored hair and shale-blue eyes. Oi.

Fiction Candle recommends leaving this book on the shelf in favor of another, stronger in the Christian side of its fiction.

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Until the next book, remember Christ the author of salvation and the reader of your heart.

#political #thriller #mystery #romance