The Dark Man
by Marc Schooley
Colorado Springs: Marcher Lord Press, 2009, 398 pp., paperback.

Note: See my interview with author Marc Schooley.

In his dystopian novel, The Dark Man, author Marc Schooley creates a 1984-style world with Big Brother watching and dreary ASL music (Approved Song List). Government agent Charles Graves is the son of a U. S. senator, but he got his job on merit--no one else can slip into a disguise easier. Graves utilizes his unique skills to infiltrate and destroy Christian groups in Texas. When Charles goes after James Cleveland, the most influential Christian leader still at large, God has other plans and Graves undergoes a Saul-to-Paul type of conversion, suddenly finding himself helping Cleveland and seeking to live out his new faith while on the run from his former fellow agents.

While there's plenty of action--including helicopter gunships!--Schooley works on developing characters including Charles and his female love interest, Julia. Charles' youth was troubled, as he lost his mother to arrest and his brother to untimely death as a child. A phantom that speaks to him out of a childhood puzzle influences many of his decisions. All of these issues affect him throughout the novel as more details emerge and the plot increases in complexity. It takes clever writing to fool readers with a plot twist when you're writing in a genre that is expected to have twists, but Schooley manages the feat in satisfactory style. I highly recommend The Dark Man and look forward to future novels from Schooley.

Visit Marc Schooley.

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