Waking Lazarus
T.L. Hines
Bethany, July 2006, $18.99, 236 pp.
ISBN 0764202049

He died three times and three times he came back to life. He isn’t Lazarus he is Jude Allman. The first time he died was when he was eight years old when he fell through the ice; an hour later he came back to life. The second time he went to the Other Side he was sixteen and was hit by lightening; he was dead for three hours. The third time he passed on he was twenty-four and caught in a snowstorm before while trapped in his car for three days.

Weary of the publicity and demands of desperate people, Jude assumes a new name, moves to Red Lodge, Montana and finds work as a janitor. He becomes paranoid and reclusive even neglecting his son, the result of a one night stand. When Kristina tracks him down and calls him by his real name, he starts to remember his past, has knowledge of people he can’t explain and visions; the most traumatic that of a man holding children in his home. The police in the area think the man in the visions is the one causing the disappearance of several children in surrounding towns. When his son and his friend are snatched, Jude calls on God to help him find the missing children.

This is a fine metaphysical thriller that focuses on a man who has tasted death three times only to come back to life unable to cope with what has happened. He cannot accept his role in life through the experiences he had and prefers to forget his several deaths. It is hard to believe this is T.L. Hines’ debut novel because it is so well written and the characters populating the storyline are believable. Visionary fiction is hard to write well but Mr. Holmes does a great job of doing just that.

Harriet Klausner