"'That's what I wanted to tell you, Anne. How will you feel, Anne? When I'm dead, and it all starts again, how will you?' Suddenly he laughed, a mirthless cackle that reverberated through the cell block, coming back to batter at her eardrums again and again." This is a quote from Black Lightning, a book by bestselling author John Saul. This book hypnotized me with its creepy plot and interesting character development.
A theme of this book is that death is not the end, but a new beginning. An example from the book to prove this is, "'Glen was dead for almost two minutes,' Anne said, her voice as flat as the detective's had been a moment earlier. 'The morning he had his heart attack, they lost him in the ambulance on the way to Group Health. They had to stop so both of the medics could work on him. It's all in the records, Mark. They used CPR, drugs, and the defibrillator. And it happened at almost exactly nine A.M., Pacific Time.'" At noon Eastern Time, which would be nine Pacific Time, Richard Kraven, a serial killer, was executed. Anne's husband, Glen, acting strangely since returning from the hospital after his heart attack, had gruesome dreams that turned out to be memories. Richard Kraven's soul had been residing alongside Glen's soul in Glen's body, possessing the body and using it to kill more people. This proves that death is a new beginning because when Richard Kraven supposedly died, his soul lived on and went into another body. On page 420, the book says, "Blakemoor remembered the words Anne had uttered only a few moments before, quoting what Richard Kraven had said in one of the interviews she'd reread only a little while earlier: 'Nijinsky stopped dancing because he thought another spirit was entering his body while he was out of it.'" This proves that death is a new beginning because it is another instance of a foreign soul entering someone else's body after the soul's original body had been destroyed. Another example proving this theme is, "He was no longer in his body. Somehow, during that last terrible flash of blinding pain, he'd managed to escape, slipping away from the agony before it could break his mind. Now, gazing back down at his body, he could see that the pain was still there, for his face was contorted into an anguished grimace." Glen Jeffers' body was dead for two minutes. The fact that his spirit was floating outside of his body shows that death is not the end. Instead of being gone for good, he was still self-aware as a spirit and had the choice of going back or passing on.
One character in the book is Anne Jeffers, a Seattle Herald journalist. John Saul made me believe in this character as a person because she was not just some perfect fictional being. She made mistakes, and had basic human nature, just like everyone else; she was real. I like the character of Anne Jeffers, and liking her made me really get into the book and hope that she unraveled the mysteries surrounded the Richard Kraven murders. Anne is a brave woman. An example that proves this bravery is, "Not Heather! It couldn't happen to Heather--she wouldn't let it happen to Heather!" Heather, Anne's daughter, had been kidnapped by serial killer Richard Kraven, and Anne, refusing to allow what had happened to Kraven's other victims happen to her only daughter, assured herself that she would save Heather. Anne is a woman who perseveres. On page 13, the book says, "Evidence that Anne Jeffers had recounted over and over again during the years she had covered this case." Not wanting to sentence an innocent man to death, Anne, who had been working on the Kraven case for a few years, constantly pored over the evidence to make sure that she was right in trying to convict him and give him the death penalty. Anne was also a romantic. The book says, "Then she thought of Glen, and was instantly consumed by a desire to be held by him, to feel his arms around her, his lips on hers, his strength pulling her close to him." After witnessing Kraven's execution, Anne was upset, as anyone who witnessed an execution would be. But the thought of Glen, her husband of about twenty years, made her feel better.
The book Black Lightning connects to the world because people are still receiving the death penalty as punishment for certain crimes. The death penalty, the punishment of execution administered to someone legally convicted of a capital crime, is a very controversial subject, and always has been. Capital punishment will always be a controversial topic. One view is that being killed as punishment for killing someone is hypocritical, while another view is that the criminal has no chance of being rehabilitated and does not deserve to live. According to Statisticbrain.com, 1,348 people have been executed since 1976. Just last year, 39 people were executed in the U.S.
I would recommend Black Lightning to anyone who likes reading books in the horror and supernatural genres, but this book is not for the faint of heart. Black Lightning is a book for fans of gore, violence, and mystery.
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