Alcorn brings much of his research from his book "Heaven" into this story. Although I don't like fiction, I couldn't put this one down

A very interesting book!!! A mix of religion and mystery. Very thought provoking.

This was such an exciting,suspenseful,Christian mystery novel.

Wonderful and thorough character development.One really gets drawn into the story of these 3 guys and their families.

The moral and social issues that are examined are though-provoking.


The author succeeded on so many levels to make this book a joy to read.

My wife and I have been reading Heaven and enjoying it immensely, so I was very eager to check out his fiction works.

Alcorn makes a lot of thought-provoking points to Christians and others alike. There are a number of passages presented in the form of letters, newspaper columns and articles which could be easily used as text materials for advocacy groups. Every believer with a cause should check out his material here.

I was particularly struck by a passage that basically suggested that liberals have success in the media because they know how to relate to editors, writers and publishers, and that conservatives generally don't. Alcorn's not so subtle implication is that if we want to get our message out more effectively, we'd better learn how to relate and speak on their terms. (This is just one of many subtopics of the book.)

His descriptions of heaven are incredibly thought provoking. Again, having read Heaven, it was a delight to read a narrative account of heaven.

My only criticism, shallow as it may be, is that the book is pretty long. Alcorn covers a lot of ground here in terms of storyline, politics, theology, etc. and it may have been too much for one book. Having said that, I would highly recommend this book!

Randy Alcorn has written a very exciting series wiyh Deadline in the middle. The story has many twists and turns that keep you init`s grip right up to the surprise ending.

In Deadline, Randy Alcorn attempts quite a lot, in fact maybe too much. I found myself myself saying to the books engaging hero, newspaper journalist Jake Woods, that no self-respecting newspaperman could be as stupid as he is. It seems he can't do anything right.

In addition every calamity on the Christian spectrum besets him. His atheist doctor friend is engaged in late trimester abortions and numerous other corrupt medical practices. Jake cheated on his wife leading to his divorce and has now conveniently convinced himself that his wife, daughter and mother are better off when he doesn't have to exert any energy to see them or tend to their needs. In addition to all this his daughter gets pregnant, threatens suicide, and winds up coming down with AIDS. His newspaper is overrun by a cadre of politically correct homosexual reporters and editors wielding great power. It's like every issue that could possibly affect Christians is addressed in this novel.

In spite of this there was something compelling about the hero. Although I got really mad at Jake and wondered how he could be such a renown editorialist, as he seemed clueless a lot of the time, I found I was emotionally invested in his story.

It's just that the political stuff got completely overwhelming and some scenes seemed contrived. When Jake gives his daughter's sex-ed teacher a good verbal thrashing, his deceased friend's teenage daughter just happens to be there with a past pro-sex education, pro-abortion editorial in her hand that he wrote on the subject and thrusts it at him calling him a hypocrite. I didn't believe for a second that this mixed up girl carried Jake's past editorial around with her and was able to produce it at that exact moment to hoist Jake on his own petard. There was some dialog and other scenes equally unbelievable.

I have read the books years ago but I have to say sitting in traffic has become a lot more fun. I am looking forward to the next two books on CD!

All the way through this book I was trying to guess who was out to kill Jake. That is only a small piece of the action. The real story is going on a journey with Jake as he grows and learns more about himself and his maker.

After the car accident that led to the deaths of columnist Jake Woods' two best friends, Doc and Finney, Jake receives a message that seems to indicate that Doc's loss of control over his vehicle was caused by someone else's tampering with it. Wanting to make the killer pay, he goes to Ollie Chandler, a homocide detective that owes him a favor, for help. Jake then uses his experience as an investigative journalist to attempt to aid Ollie.

However, Jake's search for answers about his friends morphs into a search for truth. When his teenage daughter becomes pregnant and contracts HIV due in part to the bad influence of the school nurse, Jake is forced to come to terms with both the results of his liberal beliefs as well as his own parenting failures. Don't wince. Thankfully, Alcorn is a capable enough writer that Jake's change of beliefs about abortion and sex education, as well as his acceptence of Christianity, do not seem painfully forced in. His writing skills also come in handy in the descriptions of Finney's new life in heaven and the one glimpse of Doc's defiant existence in hell. The subject matter of Finney's "introductory course" to heaven, taught by his former guardian anger Zyor, can prove a great motivation for Christians to make the most of their life on earth. One warning for some readers: the past sexual sins of his characters are not a subject Alcorn avoids, though there is no written pornography in "Deadline."

The plot twists and turns the whole way through the book. Jake originally believes the murderer to be a rabid pro-lifer who was after former abortionist Doc. But that angle doesn't pan out, and his search is further complicated by two FBI agents who claim that Doc might have accidentally gotten involved with organized crime and swear Jake to absolute silence about the investigation. The two also warn that Jake is being followed. In the end, readers will almost certainly be surprised by the group of characters responsible for both the deaths of Doc and Finney as well as Jake's near-killing shortly before the book's end: though Alcorn's forshadowing is obvious upon reading the book a second time, the plot twists kept me turning pages.

I first read "Deadline" when I was 19 and in college, and I really liked the book -- the story line part of it. I realized from the get-go that this was no mere novel, but a herald of the Christian faith as well. And since the author makes this so blindingly clear throughout, I have no issue with it. What I DO have an issue with is the way he paints his characters as black and white. Conservative Christians are painted as goodhearted, kind, loving, people, while homosexuals, liberal-thinking doctors, irreligious journalists, sex education teachers, and Democatic politicians are soulles, irreverant monsters who are not living a liberal lifestyle, but revelling in the type of behavior that the author thinks will someday send them to hell. Conservative Christianity is all right to promote, but when put forward the world as strictly black and white, not in belief but in people, the book stops becoming a message of Christian hope and becomes blatant Christian propaganda. In the book, one of the characters makes a note that liberals refer to her not as "pro-life" but by the more negative epithet "anti-abortion". Alcorn's novel becomes the same thing, it can't be viewed as "pro-Christianity"; it can only be referred to as "anti-liberalism". Unfortunately for his message, Alcorn's propaganda is off-putting to someone who does not share his viewpoint. Rather than make me happy to be a Christian, it gave me a feeling of dissettlement, that I and everyone else who read it was being judged by the author. Let he among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone. So unless you see things as Mr. Alcorn does in black and white...think twice about picking up this book.

I read through this book within a couple of days, and I'm a slow reader. Alcorn's style seems to be maturing. I very much enjoyed Safely Home, but though I'm one of those fundamentalist "fanatics" you've been warned about, I found myself thinking that the preaching segments were a bit too unsubtle. This is not to say they were ineffective, of course. Still, Deadline does a much better job of smoothly slipping them in.

I'm probably an unsophisticated critic, but I found this book to be exciting and enjoyable. As I read, I began to get a glimpse of how the liberal media comes by its apparent blindness, though I'm still shaking my head.

One problem I had with the book is purely a medical thing. It's just not that easy to find and exterminate the person who has just the perfect organ for a desperate and unscrupulous client. Getting that new pumper isn't quite so simple as presented. I had to ignore this bit of medical lore in order to enjoy the story.