THE JEHOVAH CONTRACT

by Victor Koman ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 15, 1987

Weird but mostly entertaining hybrid of hard-boiled, wisecrack sleuthing, near-future fantasy, and religious-political polemic; it first appeared last year in Germany. In 1999, semiretired contract hit-man Dell Ammo molders in his office in rotting, radioactive downtown Los Angeles. Enter slick, super-rich evangelist Emil Zacharias, offering Ammo a contract--to kill God! (As an inducement, Zacharias miraculously cures Ammo of the cancer that would have killed him in six months.) Ammo takes the job--the pay is good and, after all, he's not crazy--but where is God to be found, and how might He be killed? Ammo soon acquires some helpers: angelic but tough Ann Perrine, aging witch Bridget, telepathic child whore Isadora; he needs them badly, since assassins are soon lining up to kill him, by ordinary and supernatural means. Behind the opposition, it emerges, is the Ecclesia, a cabal of world religious leaders with--obviously--vested interests in preserving God, plus--Zacharias himself! (who turns out to be Satan, making a bid for the top spot; he has realized, belatedly, that the death of God would mean the death of Satan too). Ammo, then, must kill God by destroying the very concept of Him in the minds of the world's billions of believers. Finally, things culminate in a hallucinatory battle on the ethereal plane. Very strange but often absorbing stuff, with a number of glaring prose problems (as when Korean writes ""impetuous"" when he means ""impulsive"") and, overall, no punches pulled: guaranteed, in sum, to offend the orthodoxly religious--and amuse the irreverent.

Pub Date: April 15, 1987

ISBN: 0977764907

Page Count: -

Publisher: Watts

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1987

Categories: FICTION