An experienced detective takes on an enigmatic shadow organization in Runkis’ (Three Proofs That God Exists, 2019) dystopian thriller.

In 2056, legendary investigator Willy J. Morro is brought out of retirement at the request of a U.S. senator. She needs the 91-year-old criminologist to help track down the Yuendi, a mysterious criminal organization that’s recently killed several operatives by somehow vaporizing them. The Yuendi—aka the Brotherhood of Chaos—has also been responsible for a string of unusual terrorist acts, such as jamming transportation computers to cause massive traffic jams; as Yuendi expert Ward Baxter thinks, “No one knew how many there were, where they came from, when they got started, or, more importantly, what on God’s green earth they were trying to accomplish—apart from mayhem and mass destruction for destruction’s sake.” Forty-eight-year-old Special Agent Bill Macalister from the U.S. Department of Justice has been assigned to play the sidekick to Morro’s grizzled veteran. Unbeknown to the former, Morro has reason to suspect that the Yuendi may have something to do with UFOs—and a government conspiracy to cover up their existence.  The two investigators, plus Baxter and microbiology researcher Mary Jamison, must get to the bottom of the mystery, which involves a possibly mythical object called the Golden Cord of Arram. Runkis’ prose is curt and moody, which is in keeping with the author’s self-aware riff on detective fiction: “It was a large eucalyptus that was now badly charred and broken. Before the blast…it must have stood twenty meters high. It now terminated about three meters above the ground, all charred and splintered.” Morro, in particular, is a welcome addition to the stable of smug-but-capable investigative geniuses—in part due to his advanced age, and his oft-stated desire to celebrate his 150th birthday. Despite the novel’s familiar genre trappings, it’s rather ambitious in its themes, and as the plot ramps up, it goes in unexpected directions. Although the tale goes to some unnecessarily dark places, its mix of conspiracy and crime fiction makes for a generally entertaining and occasionally thought-provoking escape.

A stylish story in which investigators aren’t afraid to get in too deep.

Near-death experiences, ancient religions, and everyday miracles add up to overwhelming evidence of God’s existence, according to this ardent philosophical memoir.

Runkis combines elements of Christianity, the cabala, Hindu yogic philosophy and the occult “Hermetic” tradition of the legendary Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus into an argument that God exists as a “Non-Mechanical Universe”—one that’s brimming with magic and geared toward responding to human need and teaching spiritual lessons. He offers three major proofs: the biblical story of Moses’ staff turning into a snake that devoured two serpents created by Pharaoh’s magicians, in which Runkis sees a hidden Hermetic assertion of monotheism; the geometrical relationships between the cross, the Star of David, the caduceus, and other symbols; and allegedly “scientifically documented” cases of reincarnation, near-death experiences, and transfigurations by a “Clear White Light.” He offers more evidence in the bulk of the book, which is devoted to the author’s picaresque autobiography. The account touches on his military service during the Vietnam War, the 1967 Summer of Love in San Francisco, his time in the yoga ashram of Swami Satchidananda in California, and his own varying careers as a light-show performance artist, a jewelry maker, and an entrepreneur who founded startups in biomedicine, internet technology, and cryptography. Runkis’ life story also tells of moments that he considers to be miraculous intervention by the Non-Mechanical Universe, including the improbable recovery of a diamond that a gem broker misappropriated; an inexplicable swarm of dragonflies that drove away mosquitoes during an outdoor ashram lecture; and a person who happened by and fixed the author’s pickup truck when it broke down in a remote forest.

Runkis’ treatise relies on sacred texts, controversial accounts of reincarnation and near-death experiences, and an unfalsifiable theory that virtually everything that happens—good, bad, monstrous, random—constitutes divine spiritual tutelage. As such, it will likely not convince skeptics of God’s existence. Interspersed with his arguments are snippets of mystical doctrine, yoga practice tips (“Complete this mudra by looking up, crossing your eyes, and focusing them on the same point of pressure at the crown of your head”), and erudite but often turgid excursions into esoteric lore (“Christ is the Rose, the heart, Tiphereth, the source and center of all things, the sublime force that unites Malkuth with Kether—the principle of Earth with the Crown of Creation—in the Holy Kabbalah”). Most involving are Runkis’ psychedelic depictions of his own visionary trances: “I rocketed up and up in an ecstatic paroxysm of brilliant white-hot energy, an orgasm-like force without end or ejaculation until I was impelled into the most beautiful and peaceful Garden I have ever seen.” Runkis is a vivid, forceful writer when he sticks to his earthly doings, as in his engrossing stories of a marijuana-smuggling adventure in Europe, white-knuckle tales of business reversals, and an account of a yearslong medical crisis. In these passages, his insights on the power of faith feel authentic and well-earned.

A hit-and-miss spiritual disquisition that sets murky mystical effusions against a gripping testimonial.