Hacker by Ted Dekker

This is another in The Outlaw Chronicles. If you have not read some of them you may miss the full impact of the novel but the story does read well and can be enjoyed on its own.

This novel centers on a seventeen year old genius who has already completed college. Nyah is a computer whiz and can hack her way into almost anything. Having lost her father and brother in an auto accident, she desperately wants to keep her severely brain damaged mother alive. She needs money, more money than she's been getting with her jobs, so she takes a daring move and decides to hack into a large and secret corporation. When it all goes wrong she turns to a friend for help.

Austin is deep in a project exploring the brain. He has a brain tumor and is investigating the possibility of healing. He and Nyah travel into the mysteries of the spirit world, communicating with God and coming to a greater understanding of how He works in the world and in their lives.

Purely on the level of enjoying a well crafted novel, this one has it all. The character of Nyah pulled me in right away. She is so brilliant yet so desperate to keep her mother alive. I just wanted to hug her. The bad guys are really bad and Dekker does a great job of having us experience their evil. The novel also has lots of suspenseful action and sci-fi type experiences.

Christians will find great analogies to the Christian life in the book. The primary one is complete surrender to God. Another is trusting in the sovereignty of God. A third is the certainty of life after death - but this one is a little too vague for my liking. Dekker does not give any idea as to the difference between eternal life for believers and others. I would have rather Dekker had included a little something about judgment or another way of indicating that our beliefs in this life do matter.

I recommend this book as another good one from Dekker. There is much for Christians to appreciate in it. If shared with your non-Christian friend, it would give you an opportunity to clarify the reality of life after death and how our beliefs in this lifetime are crucial.

Ted Dekker is a New York Times best-selling author of over thirty novels. He was born of missionaries and grew up in Indonesia. He lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and children. You can find out more about him and his books at http://teddekker.com/.

Worthy Publishing, 304 pages.

I received a complimentary egalley of this novel from the publisher for the purpose of an independent and honest review.