THE STRONGHOLD

Angels and demons take sides in a struggle between a church and a villainous sheriff in this Christian fantasy thriller.

Bentley’s novel opens with Bo Ostermon, pastor of the South Point Community Church in Texas, and his wife Mary adopting the Vasquez siblings—Jorge, Jacob, and Margarite—from a Mexican orphan camp. Their act of charity sours when Jorge, who proves to be a glue-huffing, machete-swinging psychopath devoted to the demoness Lilith, falsely accuses Bo of abusing him and tries to rape a girl. The Ostermons promptly return the Vasquezes to the camp, but not before a demon poisons Bo’s mind with negative thoughts (e.g., “You are a spineless coward”). Back in South Point, Bo runs afoul of the town’s evil Sheriff Marcus Wheeler, who frames him for rape. When Bo is paroled eight years later, Marcus continues persecuting him, and the Vasquezes, who now run a human trafficking ring with Marcus, abduct Bo’s daughter Julia. She manages to escape and falls in with the mysterious Manny Maylock, an amnesiac fisherman with a Labrador called Roxie. The plot gravitates toward a showdown at South Point Community Church, which hosts a public meeting to present video evidence exonerating Bo and implicating Marcus in many crimes.

Bentley’s yarn is in part about a grand celestial war between beings who are awesome—one demon “wielded a cruel whip of living fire in one hand and a massive shield glowing blood-red and black in the other”—but don’t have much of an impact. The teeming cast of angels and devils pop in and out of the story haphazardly without much individuation or dramatic presence, with the angels especially cutting rather stolid, Tom Clancy–ish figures. (“Double the patrol schedules. I want eyes on every approach to this town, and constant monitoring of the spiritual atmosphere.”) More gripping is Bentley’s noirish portrait of South Point’s small-town corruption and vendettas, where the bad guys steal the show: While the Christian heroes usually act as prayer warriors summoning angelic intervention through faith, Marcus acts with a worldly, swaggering verve rendered in punchy prose. (“‘I tell you what, Alice. If things go bad and I feel like I am in dire straits, rather than worry about what you may tell the authorities, how about I just come to your place and snap your pretty little neck!’”) Much of the book’s conflict occurs within human souls, and Bentley’s depiction of said struggle is vividly phantasmagoric, with demons perched on shoulders murmuring toxic ideas, as when a fellow pastor questions Bo over Jorge’s allegations. (“The imp of Deceit flitted between the two men like a mosquito, invisible wings beating frantically. Its whispers were silk-smooth poison, dripping doubt into Austin’s mind, rage into Bo’s heart. He doesn’t believe you, it hissed to Bo. Your own friend thinks you’re a monster.”) In passages like these, Bentley paints a shrewd and compelling Christian view of the psychology of evil.

Although the cosmic-clash elements feel underserved, Bentley’s exploration of earthly sin is bankable entertainment.