Neesa Hart End of State

End of State

Neesa Hart

Tyndale Jan 2004, 303 pp.

ISBN 0842385231

Secretary of State Bradley Benton is watching a basketball game in his Washington D.C. apartment when some of the players disappear. The only things left behind are their jewelry and clothing. When a call summons him to the White House he learns that the disappearances are nationwide. President Fitzhugh believes a foreign power is behind the vanishings and he is prepared to go to war as soon as he finds out who the enemy is.

The Reverend Marcus Dumont of the New Covenant Ministry knows what the disappearances mean and immediately calls upon the Lord to be saved. Marietta Arnold, the associate director of FEMA is asleep when one third of the world's population disappears. She works until she is exhausted using the nation's waterways to get food and water to the people who need it since the highways, railroads, and airplanes are in disarray. It is when her son Randal returns from college fired up by God's word does she admit the Rapture occurred.

While some politicians like the president and a few members of his cabinet look out for themselves. Randal, Marcus, Mariette and Benton join forces to fight the forces of darkness that are spreading across the land and vow to bring the word of God to the unbelievers no matter the dangers to themselves.

END OF STATE is a fabulous addition to the Left Behind series. Unlike other works in the series, it concentrates on what happens in the United States on a national and local level right after the Rapture and while Nicolae Carpathia is consolidating his base of power. Readers are treated to a different perspective on the president who is not as pure as he seems in other Left Behind novels. Neesa Hart tells an enthralling story while melding her four protagonists into a new Tribulation Force

Harriet Klausner