Steve Johnson (24)

In “The Last Sermon”, the first Christian suspense novel I’ve read, author Steve Johnson, creates a modern-day story set in Tupelo, Mississippi. The character, Kelby Merak, is a journalist. His assignment is to investigate a possible conflict of interest for the “Coon Hunters for Christ” killing animals and “glorifying God”.

The story unfolds with a twist when Kelby, on his way home from a hunt, accidentally hits Ezra Pounders, a presumed-dead preacher. Ezra was rushed to the show more hospital. The twist in this is everyone in town thought Ezra died years ago in the same car crash his family was killed in. This event is the beginning of Kelby’s relationship with Ezra. Ezra knew he wasn’t going to live so he chose Kelby to be his messenger with his final sermon. Ezra’s sermon has a metaphysical tone which is the part of the book I enjoyed most. I thought that was a very creative way to reconstruct Christian beliefs. The ending with the morse code was another twist I didn’t expect. show less