Adam – Ted Dekker

©2008 Thomas Nelson, Nashville

Ted Dekker doesn’t always hit the mark for me (see my review of Skin). Even so, he hit a home run with his recent thriller Adam.

Adam is the story of a serial killer known to the FBI as Eve. He has killed fifteen young women in as many months, and law enforcement officials are hoping to catch him before number sixteen. He kills every new moon and has developed the habit of writing the word “Eve” on the wall over his victims in blood, leaving the victims in basements, cellars, and caves.

Daniel Clark is the behavioral psychologist who leads the chase of the elusive Eve. His obsession with catching the killer has cost him his marriage, and perhaps his sanity. Upon locating victim sixteen alive, Daniel comes face to face with Eve and is shot for his effort. New team member Lori Ames, a pathologist imported from Phoenix to help in identifying and catching Eve, works feverishly to resuscitate Daniel after the fatal wound. Through some miracle (which Daniel doesn’t believe in) her efforts are rewarded, and Daniel lives again to obsess over Eve.

When Eve takes Daniel’s ex-wife, Heather, as victim number 17, Daniel determines to catch up to the killer and save Heather, even if he must die in the process.

Adam reads like a procedural part of the time and a suspense/thriller at other times. Dekker throws in the cleaned up “reporter’s” account in the form of periodic interruptions throughout the book that claims to be a “Nine part series” of reporter Anne Rudolph. For Crime Today, Rudolph chronicles the lifelong travails of kidnap victims Alex and Jessica Price. In essence, you get two takes on the same tale from two different perspectives.

This is a work reminiscent of Dekker’s earlier rocker Thr3e. If you’re fond of suspense or thriller writing (especially with a whopper of a twist) you’ll enjoy this read. I know I did. I give Adam 4.5 out of 5 reading glasses.

—Benjamin Potter, January 30, 2009