This book is about a small southern town with a "preacher" named Archer McFall leading a religious cult. The majority of the book has your typical Christian horror elements in it: a woman seduced by the dark side, a televangelist as the evil leader, a haunted cop, a stereotypical stone heart female cop, and the one man whose faith in the Lord doesn't falter. A lot of the plot was pretty stereotypical too, but even with all the "been there, read that," happening, I still enjoyed the story and was intrigued to see what happened next.
Aside from being a captivating story-teller, I particularly love the way Nicholson describes things. As a fellow writer, I have to say I'm very jealous of the way he can describe primal emotions in a new way, and for that I have to give him major kudos.
What really made me a fan was the ending of the novel. (Spoiler alert!!) The entire novel was all about the Christian battle between God and the Devil, Heaven and Hell, Good and Evil. And then we get to the last couple pages where we see a major twist. What was the evil leader of the cult actually turned out to be a creature of the earth that gave no such recognition to God or the Devil because it didn't entertain the idea of "anything greater than itself." This creature merely used religion to its advantage to get what it wanted. I really, really loved that this was the way it ended instead of with some intervention from Jesus or having the demonic preacher win out. It really threw me for a loop and got me thinking.
The Red Church is a good read for anyone looking for a classic horror tale with a twist ending written by a talented author with a gift of describing the world around us. I give this book four stars, and am eager to read more of Nicholson's work.
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