The Devil's Gospel
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The Devil's Gospel
Narrated by:
Sean Duregger
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Narrated by:
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Sean Duregger
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By:
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A. S. Coomer
About this listen
Biology Professor Kevin Ballard finds his quiet life rocked by a series of vicious mysterious events. First, his mother is slain in his childhood home. Then, his girlfriend (and research assistant) is kidnapped from their cabin, and he finds that the plant he's studying is apparently being used in strange local rituals. To top it all off, the police think Kevin is somehow involved.
Who wants to wreck his life and why?
©2019 A.S. Coomer (P)2020 A.S. CoomerListeners also enjoyed...
I thought Kevin and Kate were stuck up academics who think they know everything and make fun of everyone. They make fun of religious people, the locals and anyone else to get on their radar. Having said that let me say this was one of the best books I have ever read and body and your heart will break for Kevin and for Kate and I haven’t even got in to Detective Torres story yet. I thought Sean Dreggar did a great job with the narration and all the boys to see had to remember. Even though this book was so good it really bothered me that all the people that were supposed to be smarter than the rest absolutely with 100% certainty knew that God didn’t exist in the locals were a bunch of locals it made me think of that famous “the only enemy of intelligence is not thinking you have more, But thinking you have the most. Do you think you absolutely know something that is impossible to absolutely no shows a sign of the lack of intelligence. Having said that as I said this is one of the best books I’ve ever read.
Weird, crazy and definitely scary!
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I had difficulty from the start with A. S Coomer's The Devil's Gospel, even Sean Duregger's assured performance couldn't breathe life the book for me. The opening chapter jumps between several concurrent - and to me all too similar - scenes, and none of them captured my imagination.
The story did settle, thankfully, and the various scenes of the first chapter begun to tie together as we are introduced (we've already met him, but the choppiness of the first chapter makes it an unfulfilling "introduction") to Kevin, our lead, a biologist who quickly reveals himself to be a singularly unpleasant person.
Still, thanks to Sean Duregger - a narrator I particularly enjoy - I persevered with it.
Unfortunately Kevin has few redeeming qualities, and I thought things might pick up a little when we met Kate, his girlfriend, but if anything I begun to dislike both characters even more. There is an amazing scene where they talk about the intolerance and ignorance of Christians where their lack of self awareness is rather stunning. Kevin and Kate show such phenomenal levels of intolerance and ignorance I wanted to go to my nearest church and offer up penance for them; and I'm a life long agnostic!
In the rare moments where Kevin and Kate are not (wilfully?) misrepresenting Christian theology to make fun of them the story comes together, and A. S. Coomer writes quite nicely, I think if there wasn't such an attack Christianity I would have enjoyed the book a great deal more, but it seemed that this was the point of the book, and the story came second place to this main aim. Later, Kevin - a university lecturer and botanist - shows an alarming lack of interest in the local tales regarding the use of plants. He seems unable to engage in perfectly normal human conversation with someone who has views that do not match his own; just like any old fashioned bigot. At this point I realised how much I hate these people and by the books end I'd found I had completely lost interest. Besides this the open hatred of religion I saw in the book made the ending fairly obvious to predict.
If you don't mind phenomenal levels of anti-Christian hatred then you might really enjoy this story. The characters are well drawn and the plot is complex enough to hold interest easily (even if you guess who the villain the first time you meet him). There's also some very good atmosphere that draws really well on the location and people, but for me the truly unpleasant lead really spoilt what could have been a really good book.
A more even handed approach - one that was more sympathetic with its criticism of religion - would've server the story much better. Nothing makes a character more sympathetic than when they show sympathy to others, so this would've made Kevin someone I would have cared for and it would not have telegraphed the ending quite so completely.
Hopefully if you give this one a go you'll enjoy it far more than I did, I do seem to be a minority in my view on The Devil's Gospel so you're far more likely to like it than not!
A good idea spoilt by some heavy handedness...
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