The Witnesses

Whitlow’s new novel features novice attorney Parker House and his 82-year-old granddad, Frank. It hops back and forth from present-day North Carolina to WWII Germany. Young Parker seems to have some sixth sense that’s put him on the legal fast track. It’s ESP, inherited from Frank, who, as a young German officer, used it to rise in the ranks. But is this a gift from God, or something that will eventually require God’s forgiveness? The author keeps interest high by switching from Parker’s career upticks to Frank’s flashbacks to nightmarish military days to Parker’s budding romance with Layla Donovan, a beautiful, ambitious photographer, to a suspenseful subplot when Frank is suddenly kidnapped. Narrator McClure, though no stranger to the author’s intriguing work (he’s also read A House Divided and The Confession), takes an earnest but otherwise unemotional approach to the material. It’s as if he’s concentrating on the words while ignoring their subtext. Even in the novel’s most thrilling moments, there’s no sense of excitement. This is not enough to totally detract from the dimensional characters or the well-structured plot with its significant religious message, but it is disconcerting. A Thomas Nelson hardcover. (Aug.)