Review; Mercury Falls

Read 1/23/11 - 2/1/11

4 Stars -Strongly Recommended

Pgs:337

Leave it to a bunch of renegade fallen angels to muck up the Apocalypse!

Robert Kroese, master of his self titled website and developer of software, has put pen to paper to deliver a dark and humorous story about the end of the world as everyone knows it.

You don't have to be a religious scholar to figure out that God and the Devil don't get along. And apparently, you don't have to be a high ranking member of the Church to preach to your congregation about the coming Apocalypse, as our wearied heroine Christine is quickly finding out.

Journalist for a Christian news magazine, Christine has been covering End Times cults and their false prophecies for years. So by the time she meets up with a self proclaimed cherub by the name of Mercury, she has seen and heard everything. Skeptical and weary, she interviews Mercury on his Doomsday theory and soon finds herself smack in the middle of a war unlike any the world has known before.

After millennia of trickery and subliminal positioning, it would appear that the armies of Heaven and Hell are ready to engage in the battle to end all battles - The time for Armageddon has finally arrived! It will take the combined skills of Christine, Mercury, and various other fallen angels, to throw every allegorical wrench they can into the works in order to bring the end of the world to... well... an end.

A sucker for apocalyptic story lines, I find myself forever fascinated with the twisted and warped assumption that all is not well in the land of the Holy and Heavenly. I love dark films like Legion and satires like Dogma that feature fallen angels bucking the ancient hierarchies of Heaven. Novels like American Gods and The Good Omen, both written by Neil Gaiman, introduce God and angel-like beings with human-like personalities, perhaps due to their entirely obsessive and intrusive interaction with mankind. My own confused religious beliefs aside, films and novels like these never fail to scratch my agnostic itch.

Rob's novel cleverly contains bits and pieces of all of the above - AK47 wielding, badass angels; innocently clueless cherubs; tricky, two faced seraphs; interplanar portals; and yes, even a dickweed Antichrist whose only concern appears to be where the nearest Charlie's Grill is located.

A well paced, delightful read, Mercury Falls is populated with characters you are sure to love and hate, and love to hate, and hate that you love. Whether you are the type that roots for the good guys or the bad guys, I guarantee you will enjoy this debut novel. And beware - Rob has just completed the sequel - Mercury Rises - which he expects to drop into readers' laps sometime this summer!!