SPIRITUAL FOCUS ON BOOKS December 31, 2007 Issue

A SPIRITUAL THRILLER

KIM SHIPPEY, SENIOR WRITER

SALISBURY, SOUTHERN RHODESIA (now Harare, Zimbabwe), Spring 1962. One of the most beautiful yet turbulent countries in Africa. Left-wing factions, including homeless teenagers, are being mobilized to overturn the right-wing white government. The rebels are armed with petrol bombs, hand grenades, and Russian rifles and pistols.

Out of the Black Shadows Stephen Lungu, with Anne Coomes Monarch Books: Oxford, England; Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2006 251 pages

Among the young men is Stephen Lungu, author of Out of the Black Shadows. He was abandoned by his mother, along with his baby brother and sister, in a shopping mall. He now lives alone under a bridge and scavenges food from white folks' garbage cans. Soon he is recruited by the members of an urban gang called the Black Shadows, who one day set out to bomb a bank but can hardly believe their luck when they come across a Christian tent meeting attended by thousands of vulnerable worshipers.

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