Angelguard by Ian Acheson

This novel opens with devastating bomb blasts in three major cities. Thousands are killed.

A survivor of the deadly blast in Sydney is Jack Haines, a well known and highly respected professor of business. Jack lost his wife and sons but his twin girls survived.

Months later Jack is invited to teach a session at Insead, the school in Fontainebleu where Jack had received his MBA. One of the world's leading and largest graduate business schools, it provided short sessions for corporate leaders.

As the novel progresses, Jack meets a couple who survived the London disaster and a women survivor from the Los Angeles blast. It becomes evident that God has something special in mind for these people.

There is a powerful head of an international conglomerate who has plans for the future of the developed world. Under the guise of arranging for the modernization of a gas pipeline from Antwerp to Charleroi, he is really planning for world domination.

Only Jack finally figures out what is about to happen. Will he be able to avert the planned destruction and death of world leaders?

We see the interplay of angels and demons as future evil is planned and countered by believers. We are made aware of the importance of prayer, empowering the angels to protect Jack and his friends as they counter the evil. We also see how the demons caress evil men, influencing them to bring about the chaos and destruction.

It was good to read a novel that showed what was happening in the spiritual realm and humans acted and prayed. I tend to forget the power and influence of that spiritual realm and Acheson does a good job of reminding us of its reality.

There were a few aspects of the novel that were less than perfect. Sometimes the angels spoke in slang, such as “Gee,” “Yep,” and “I can't knock that.” That just didn't see right for angels. At one point an angel called the demons “goons.”

Also, a little editing would have helped prevent some word repetition, such as, “in excess of” appearing in one sentence and then again in the next one. (93) I know, perhaps it is not a big deal, but those little things just make a novel less than perfect.

Acheson is Austrailian and it sometimes shows in his word usage. Americans would probably consider “whilst” a Middle English word but it appears repeatedly in this novel.

In addition to those picky items, I had a bit of difficulty with the location of the action. I was not familiar with Insead and had to look it up. The characters in the book seem to already know what it is so it was never adequately explained to us.

Something I found unbelievable was that Jack, a recognized business professor, teaching at a high profile business seminar in Europe, did not know that the G8 was meeting in a few days nor where that meeting would be held. I really do think someone as recognized as Jack in the business world would have been more informed.

And the three devastating blasts at the beginning of the book don't really seem connected to the plot to overtake the world. I am not sure why those blasts happen, other than to set up the three main characters. Those bombs seemed disconnected to the rest of the plot line, especially since they happened months before the Insead and G8 action.

And last, I frequently could not picture the places and action. There was not the effective description that captures the time and place. The fact that the locations were so foreign to me made me yearn all the more for good description. And Acheson does not even come close to describing the spirit being as effectively as Peretti did.

I think this novel has great potential for reminding us of the spiritual world and the importance of prayer. I think Acheson has a great plot. I just wish an editor would have helped him make this novel the best it could be.

Watch the book trailer here.

Read an excerpt here. 

Ian Acheson works as a freelance strategy consultant. He and his wife live in Sydney, Australia with their two sons. Find out more at www.ianacheson.com.

Lion Hudson (distributed in the U.S. by Kregel Publications), 380 pages.

I received a complimentary copy of the book from Kregel for the purpose of this review.