Location: United States
Member Since:
Oct. 12, 2009
Anthony A. Policastro
Smashwords book reviews by Anthony A. Policastro
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Absence of Faith
on Oct. 12, 2009
In Absence of Faith, author Anthony Samuel Policastro begins his book with the premise: What would you do if you were confronted with a near-death experience that challenges the basic principles of your faith in God, and when you take a closer look at your life, you discover an “absence of faith”? What would you do? How would you react and cope with this discovery? Policastro poses this question to the citizens of Ocean Village, a small coastal town in New Jersey, and to the reader. Of course, how you respond depends on the strength of your faith. How strongly do you believe in God? Or is it your opinion that God had abandoned you? When Doctor Carson Hyll and his wife, Linda, are returning home from a class reunion and Carson falls sleep at the wheel and drives off the Red River Bridge, Linda pulls her husband from the wreckage. Her fast thinking and quick response to their precarious situation saves Caron from a watery grave and perhaps from hell. When Carson regains consciousness in his hospital room, he notices his sunburned complexion and a “foul, burnt odor” emanating from his skin, and has a revelation. The nurses tell him he arrived D.O.A. - that is Dead on Arrival - and despite their best efforts, they couldn’t save him. They were sure he had died in the emergency room, and, hence, they stored his body in the morgue. People with similar near-death experiences thought they had journeyed to hell and then had returned to life for some inexplicable reason. Policastro creates a dichotomous universe where good versus evil, science versus religion, and Satan and God wage a battle for the lost souls of the world, for those who believe that God is no longer with them, and realize that something was missing from their lives, realize there was an absence of faith. The chaos and pandemonium that results from an “absence of faith” is fitting and reminds one of John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, where Satan is the lord and master of Pandemonium, the capital of Hell. Absence of Faith has everything you could ask for in a book: it is a medical mystery, a murder mystery, a romance/adventure story, and a detective/police procedural story. It is a page-turner from the very first to the very last page. You will not be able to put it down. Part of this may be attributed to Policastro’s marvelous talent and skill as a writer for creating a suspenseful plot, and compelling characters with whom you will commiserate or hate. Policastro also has a talent for turning the ordinary places and locations into something extraordinary and mysterious. For instance, you will be more than a little frightened when Linda is left alone in her home and hears the sound of the howling wind, “whipping off the ocean,” and the tapping of the loose clapboard against the house. She feels a draft on her neck, and the dampness of the cold air. All of these Hitchcockian elements are preludes to Linda’s horrifying abduction, and, later, Nick Vancuso’s abduction by the same disciples of Satan. And then, there is Carson’s venture in the “root cellar,” a mysterious, secret place, a “subbasement,” which houses masonry jars, containing preserved fruits, and which contain vital secrets. There are also many interesting turning points and discoveries along the way that you will find more than a little fascinating, as Policastro unravels the story, revealing just enough information about the characters and the conflicts – good vs. evil, science vs. religion, and Satan vs. God - that will keep you sitting on the edge of your soft and comfortable reading chair.