Thr3e

[May 2010]

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Thr3e
Ted Dekker
number of voters: 8
percentage of voters who finished the book: 87.5
highest rating: 6.25
lowest rating: 3.75
average rating: 5.25

percentage of readers with either seminary or psychology degrees: 0

*****

It was one of those simple-to-read, easy-to-follow kind of plots, but it didn’t give away all of its secrets until the very end. And the pages turned faster than a car in a high-speed chase.

In the novel Thr3e, author Ted Dekker gives us Kevin Parsons, a seminary student with a mysterious past who is suddenly thrust into a high-stakes game of riddle-me-this with an anonymous psychopath.

It’s a fine way to pass a few hours, discovering what happens to Kevin Parsons. The riddles are moderately interesting; the suspense is page-turn-worthy; the creepy factor is, well, creepy enough. And bonus points to Dekker for keeping his plot twist unsuspected by almost an entire book group.

But beyond the attention-grabbing plot, it’s all just a little yawn-inducing. The writing is run of the mill; the characters are mostly roughly drawn outlines; the dialogue alternates between silly and tedious.

The end result is an interesting idea wrapped in an uninteresting package. Which leads us to perhaps the biggest riddle of all:

What’s hard to put down but easy to forget?