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.

The Review:
My Ranking: `9 out of 10
Ages: 16 & up


I’ve read a lot by Ted Dekker – Blink, Skin, Black, Red, White, Green, Kiss, House, Saint, Showdown, Chosen, The Martyr’s Song, and Adam , to name a few. ;) Everyone of them has been a treat. I especially loved Skin for its creepy suspense and Blink and Kiss for their awesome, adventurousness, and phenomenonity(is that a word? lol). While I really enjoyed The Priest’s Graveyard, it was definitely not my favorite by Dekker. BUT, it was an amazing adventure that I loved!

I have always loved Dekker’s writing style – unique and easy to read. I rarely find myself flipping back to figure out what’s going on, and usually it’s my own fault for speed-reading and missing stuff! His books are extremely gripping – each and everyone of them – making it impossible to set the book aside. I’ve even been found carrying a Dekker around while picking up the house and stuff – they’re just SO good! Full of twists and unexpected turn of events, picking up a Dekker is guaranteed to keep you captivated with an action-packed story with a killer ending from page one.

I think one thing that kept me from liking this book as much as some of his others was the fact that I never really liked Renee. In fact, I almost disliked her. I liked Danny a lot, so some of the stuff she did annoyed and bugged me. This is totally a personal preference and I highly doubt it would have an effect on most readers. I just happen to prefer books where I can relate and enjoy the characters.
Although I didn’t like Renee much, as I said above, I really loved Danny. I was able to relate with him a lot more and actually connected with him. I was able to sympathize and really get to know and enjoy his character.

There is a bit of content to warn you about. I can’t say much without giving away the ending, but suffice to say that it deals a bit with rape and molestation. In the beginning, it mentions Danny’s mother and sisters being raped and he finds them naked and dead. Also in the beginning is a scene where a girl is running, being chased obviously by someone who wants to cause her bodily harm in a sensual fashion. Also, later there is a scene where a woman breaks in to someone’s house and the man corners her in his room and tells her to do stuff like get on the bed, and says something about him being able to hurt her in only the way a woman could be hurt. But she escapes and nothing happens.
There is frequent violent scenes and mildly graphic deaths/tortures. A man cuts someone’s tongue out, people are shot, etc. But if you could handle Dekker’s previous works, this one wasn’t much more graphic.

All in all, this was a great story that I highly recommend to all action book lovers. This one is sure to take you down a road with twists and turns that you didn’t see coming, and on an adventure you'll not soon forget.

I received this free book in return for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.