The trial of Job

Fine novel as far as it goes…

THE TRIAL OF JOB
By Chuck Chitwood
Kingsway. 368 pages. £6.99
ISBN 0 7814 3308 8

‘Courtroom shenanigans. Unscrupulous lawyers. Heart-wrenching spiritual dilemmas.’ Chuck Chitwood’s first book is a legal thriller which centres around a young lawyer on the verge of making it big before everything begins to crumble before him. As myriad misfortunes strike, Charlie Harrigan doggedly, against all the odds, prosecutes a medical negligence case, where he is pitted against his former firm, in order to see justice done.

It’s an easy and pacy read, albeit with a somewhat predictable ending, and seasoned with fortuitous interventions. The protagonist appears to come to faith in the midst of his trials and, while there is some ethical development in his character, one never really quite shakes off the notion that it’s more of a wannabee John Grisham novel with too neat answers rather than something which engages the reader’s heart and mind on the many and complex issues surrounding suffering.

The characterisation in the book is overly simplistic and the plot feels contrived. The title is a misnomer: Charlie is no Job; there is little of the book’s biblical namesake in the novel; there are no comforters with their challenges to faith and there are few real questions with which to wrestle. As a novel, it is fine insofar as it goes, but it does not progress beyond a superficial and unsatisfying treatment of the themes examined in the book of the same name.

Kathy Cowan,
1st Saintfield Presbyterian Church, Belfast

© Evangelicals Now - December 2005
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