Travis Thrasher Reviews

Page One

Added September 26, 2005

The Second Thief

Author: Travis Thrasher
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Available At: Bookstores Everywhere
Publishing Date: January 2003
Genre: Fiction: Christian/Thriller
Format: Trade Paperback
Price: $10.99
ISBN: 0-8024-1707-8
Author Email/Website: www.travishthrasher.com
Reviewer: Phillip Tomasso III

Tom Ledger is the main character is Travis Thrasher's The Second Thief. This is a relentless, fast-paced, page-turning thriller. Ledger has always focused on self and career. Leaving behind family and the love of his life he was able, in leaps and bounds, to climb the corporate ladder. Upon achieving his goals he's found that he is suddenly bored with his life, and his job.

Decidedly, and this is where the book begins, Ledger steals company information, loading it onto a disk that fits in his wallet, quits his job and exits the city on a flight to San Francisco. His plan is to sell the information on the disk to a competitor willing to pay millions. Knowing he'll never have to work again, Ledger focuses on all the things he will buy with his soon new-found wealth, and where he'll move to once the riches are deposited in his bank account.

As is always the case, when one wants to be alone with one's thoughts, a youth pastor, Kent Marks, ends up sitting beside him. Marks wants to switch seats. His stomach is upset and he's looking for clear passage to the restroom. Relentlessly, Ledger denies the request to switch seats. His non-conversational tone changes when one of the plane's engines explodes. The plane is in trouble. Marks calls his family-a wife, two daughters-and asks them to pray for everyone on the plane.

Ledger has no one he wants to call. However, seeing the seriousness of the situation-that the plane is about to drop from the sky, he hops on the band wagon and prays alongside Marks. Ledger, though, prays only for himself, for his own safety.

The plane smashes into a cornfield in Nebraska. Nearly everyone on the flight dies. Ledger walks away with only a bruise. Seeing that he has been given a second chance at life should be wonderful. Ledger is, instead, only faced with more confusion and desperation. The people he agreed to give the disk to can care less about the plane crash. They know Ledger survived and that the disk is okay. The problem, Ledger is no longer sure that he wants to go the criminal route. He has an aunt and uncle who raised him, who he has not seen in a long time, but who he suddenly longs to visit. Ledger has a long-lost brother who he wants to talk to. And he has an old girlfriend who he walked away from when she was the one he knows he should have married...

Things get dangerous and deadly as Ledger tries to reestablish past relationships he once severed, because he has given the people who want the disk the slip-and they are not happy, not at all. And what is worse, they will stop at nothing until they have what they want. Ledger is in a race against time to save the lives of those he once loved (still loves), and his soul.

The highly emotional plot twist at the end stresses the underlying theme of salvation and sacrifice. (And I will admit, the last forty or so pages had me turning pages with one hand, and clutching a tissue in the other).

I read roughly 52 books a year, 53 if you count the Bible, which I read yearly from cover to cover. Aside from the Bible, Travis Thrasher's The Second Thief is now one of my all-time favorite stories. I write nearly 52 book reviews a year, as well, so I don't say this lightly. But I will say it again; The Second Thief is now one of my all time favorite stories.

Let me qualify my statement. It is more than the quality of Thrasher's writing-which is tight, concise and compelling, and it is more than the quality of the characters that Thrasher created-three dimensional, solid and real, The Second Thief is one of my favorite stories because I once was just like the main character, Tom Ledger (and if we're honest with ourselves, many other readers might find a bit of Ledger inside themselves, as well). Before being saved, and at times since then, I struggled with selfishness. Me. Me. Me. I. I. I. To see Ledger realistically turn slowly begin to turn away from that thought process and toward God...that is powerful. This book will be impossible to forget, thank God.

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Added August 19, 2005

Gun Lake

Author: Travis Thrasher
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Available At: Bookstores Everywhere
Publishing Date: May 2004
Genre: Fiction: Christian/Thriller
Format: Trade Paperback
Price: $12.99
ISBN: 0802417485
Author Email/Website: www.travisthrasher.com
Reviewer: Phillip Tomasso III

Travis Thrasher's Gun Lake is a intense suspense novel. Thrasher posses a writing style that works extremely well in fiction, compact chapters, lots of action, loads of dialogue. He describes things enough so you have a complete sense of time and place, without overdoing it on the unnecessary. What does all of this add up to? A fast-paced, can't-stop-turning pages kind of smart thriller.

After a well-choreographed maximum-security prison break, five convicts trek across the country in search of freedom-freedom on the run. Sean, the leader, has a plan. The problem is he keeps it to himself. The wheres and whys of what they do are only for Sean to know. Since the prison break was successful, and the police hadn't picked them up yet, no one was complaining...too much.

Donned the name Stagworth Five by the media, the renegades wind up heading toward a small, quiet town where they will rent a cottage along the shores of Gun Lake. They are truly a motley crew all under Sean's command. Lonnie, who is in prison for multiple sexual assaults, is like a rabid dog. There is no controlling him. His bulking size makes him more than just appear menacing. It makes him dangerous. Craig, kind of a boy, trapped inside a man's body, seems harmless enough, but it is clearly his absent-mindedness that can make him most hazardous. His escape from the realities of prison-and even after the escape-have him focusing on movies and making top ten movie lists. Next there is Wes, built like a concrete wall, he is quiet, and perhaps remorseful. Lastly, there is Kurt-Kurt Wilson, serving jail time for a horrendous crime-a crime he knows he should never be forgiven for committing.

As can be expected, when five escapees are kept bunched together in close quarters, tensions between conflicting personalities spark and it isn't long before the sparks shoot up in flames. To keep things manageable, Sean attempts to kill off one of the five.

Sean needs help. He needs someone who can do things for them-someone who the police will not be looking for. He calls in a favor from an ex-con who owes Sean a lifetime of debt. Ossie, now a Christian, feels obligated to go along with Sean and his gang. He knows people have died since there escape. He prays he can prevent more, unnecessary deaths-and maybe, just maybe God will use him to soften the hearts of these cold-blooded criminals.

When the others learn of Sean's real plan for going to Gun Lake things unravel out of control. Though they should not be shocked that Sean's motives were selfish and self-serving, they cannot be ready for the events that unfold and completely destroy their near perfect escape from prison to freedom-freedom on the run.

Travis Thrasher creates immediate tension from the opening chapter, and carries it out through to the explosive climatic ending. Though there are a host of sub stories taking place, with an array of secondary characters, the story focus mainly on the main character, Kurt Wilson. Though I would have enjoyed learning more about every single character, Thrasher keeps the nearly 400-page novel tight and as informative as it needs to be. This is a hard-boiled Christian novel. The message of salvation is in there, at time subtlety, and at others, prominently, proving Thrasher has what it takes to rise to the top of the Christian fiction charts. Exciting, suspenseful, at times warm and heartfelt, Gun Lake is everything I like to see in a novel. Thrasher uses all the elements that make for great, entertaining Christian fiction. I look forward to more thrills from this talented author.

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