The Canary List, by Sigmund Brouwer

Jamie has the ability to sense evil, and she knows it is coming for her.  So, she turns to the only person available, her teacher Mr. Grey.  Suddenly, he is suspected of molesting her, though she swears he did not, and Jamie is whisked away by her psychiatrist.  Crockett Grey tries to untangle the web around him, and finds it only gets more and more tangled, with the strands leading to the Vatican.  Will he ever learn what is going on, and will he ever get his life back.

This book certainly has potential to be very very good.  It has all kinds of incredible elements, the supernatural, cloak and dagger intrigue, drama.  The heart of the story is actually quite good.  My problem with it is that it seems to be anti Catholic.  Sure, with all the scandal the Catholic Church has had, and the long history and Church hierarchical architecture, I suppose it made sense for the Catholic Church to once again play a partial role of bad guy, but really, it gets tiresome.  If these kinds of stories were written about Judaism, they would be labeled as anti-semitic, and people would be outraged, but because it is instead the Catholic Church, that seems acceptable.

I did like the storyline, otherwise, and thought the character development was pretty decent.  And I liked how the action really picks up at the end.  However, in a last final twist of the book, I am not sure what to think was real or not real, and was left kind of confused.  I am sure that was the point, but it just left me frustrated.  Also, I felt it was never resolved what would happen to Crockett Grey afterwards.  No one just snaps back completely after being accused of molesting children, particularly a teacher.

I think this book probably has pretty wide appeal, fans of Dan Brown style books will certainly enjoy it.  Not an awful book, just perhaps could use some tighter editing, and a slightly different world view.



I received a review copy of the book courtesy of the publisher.