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The Devil's Gospel
- Narrated by: Sean Duregger
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
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The Devil's Gospel
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Summary
Biology Professor Kevin Ballard finds his quiet life rocked by a series of vicious mysterious events. First, his mother is slain in his childhood home. Then, his girlfriend (and research assistant) is kidnapped from their cabin, and he finds that the plant he's studying is apparently being used in strange local rituals. To top it all off, the police think Kevin is somehow involved.
Who wants to wreck his life and why?
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What listeners say about The Devil's Gospel
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Janalyn
- 24-10-20
Weird, crazy and definitely scary!
When a professor and a teaching assistant from the anatomy department at Kansas University get a grant they run a cabin in the Daniel Boone national park. Kevin and Kate spend their days hiking and looking for a plant called the white hey golden rod it isn’t until they find it that things start to seem a little weird. The leaves have been recently cut off end it really upsets Dr. Kevin is this plant is in danger of becoming extinct. Things get even weirder when he takes a weekend off to go visit his mother. He stops to get gas only to find the cashier is that behind the counter with her wrist/. As if that wasn’t weird enough that’s not going to be the only dead body he sees that night. He finds his mother dead on the table with the word repent sinner on the wall next to her and her wrists have been slashed as well.
I thought Kevin and Kate were stuck up academics who think they know everything and make fun of everyone. They make fun of religious people, the locals and anyone else to get on their radar. Having said that let me say this was one of the best books I have ever read and body and your heart will break for Kevin and for Kate and I haven’t even got in to Detective Torres story yet. I thought Sean Dreggar did a great job with the narration and all the boys to see had to remember. Even though this book was so good it really bothered me that all the people that were supposed to be smarter than the rest absolutely with 100% certainty knew that God didn’t exist in the locals were a bunch of locals it made me think of that famous “the only enemy of intelligence is not thinking you have more, But thinking you have the most. Do you think you absolutely know something that is impossible to absolutely no shows a sign of the lack of intelligence. Having said that as I said this is one of the best books I’ve ever read.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Alan Preece
- 24-10-20
A good idea spoilt by some heavy handedness...
I received a free copy of this book for an honest review. Please be warned what follows might be considered as containing minor spoilers by some.
I had difficulty from the start with A. S Coomer's The Devil's Gospel, even Sean Duregger's assured performance couldn't breathe life the book for me. The opening chapter jumps between several concurrent - and to me all too similar - scenes, and none of them captured my imagination.
The story did settle, thankfully, and the various scenes of the first chapter begun to tie together as we are introduced (we've already met him, but the choppiness of the first chapter makes it an unfulfilling "introduction") to Kevin, our lead, a biologist who quickly reveals himself to be a singularly unpleasant person.
Still, thanks to Sean Duregger - a narrator I particularly enjoy - I persevered with it.
Unfortunately Kevin has few redeeming qualities, and I thought things might pick up a little when we met Kate, his girlfriend, but if anything I begun to dislike both characters even more. There is an amazing scene where they talk about the intolerance and ignorance of Christians where their lack of self awareness is rather stunning. Kevin and Kate show such phenomenal levels of intolerance and ignorance I wanted to go to my nearest church and offer up penance for them; and I'm a life long agnostic!
In the rare moments where Kevin and Kate are not (wilfully?) misrepresenting Christian theology to make fun of them the story comes together, and A. S. Coomer writes quite nicely, I think if there wasn't such an attack Christianity I would have enjoyed the book a great deal more, but it seemed that this was the point of the book, and the story came second place to this main aim. Later, Kevin - a university lecturer and botanist - shows an alarming lack of interest in the local tales regarding the use of plants. He seems unable to engage in perfectly normal human conversation with someone who has views that do not match his own; just like any old fashioned bigot. At this point I realised how much I hate these people and by the books end I'd found I had completely lost interest. Besides this the open hatred of religion I saw in the book made the ending fairly obvious to predict.
If you don't mind phenomenal levels of anti-Christian hatred then you might really enjoy this story. The characters are well drawn and the plot is complex enough to hold interest easily (even if you guess who the villain the first time you meet him). There's also some very good atmosphere that draws really well on the location and people, but for me the truly unpleasant lead really spoilt what could have been a really good book.
A more even handed approach - one that was more sympathetic with its criticism of religion - would've server the story much better. Nothing makes a character more sympathetic than when they show sympathy to others, so this would've made Kevin someone I would have cared for and it would not have telegraphed the ending quite so completely.
Hopefully if you give this one a go you'll enjoy it far more than I did, I do seem to be a minority in my view on The Devil's Gospel so you're far more likely to like it than not!
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