Once You Find It, There’s No Escaping the Truth
Once You Find It,
There’s No Escaping the Truth
Small-town pastor John Cross can’t seem
to keep himself out of danger
John and Christine met in the pages of A
Cross to Kill when John, a former CIA agent turned evangelical pastor, was
called back in on a mission to rescue Christine, who had been captured and was set
for execution in Jordan. After John disappeared as quickly as he appeared, she
never expected to find her rescuer caring for the small community of believers
he ministers to in Virginia.
After a series of events brings them
closer, they decide to give a long-distance relationship a try. However, as new
believers, Christine and John find it more challenging than they expected, in
more ways than one. Christine is busy with the demand for her talents from top
news agencies in New York City, and John has his responsibilities in Virginia. Neither has any time left for each other.
“While both are
struggling to separate their identity from each other, the biggest challenge in
their relationship comes from the lack of communication, both in the sense of
the distance between them and also a lack of trust,” Huff shares. “John
struggles to reveal more of who he really is for fear of driving Christine away
while Christine struggles with planning her life around John for fear his plans
might not align with hers. The tension in their relationship stems from their
hesitancy to be truthful with one another when simply sharing their feelings
would bring many of these struggles to light.”
When Christine hears that her
stepbrother has been arrested for murder in Texas, she vows to get to the
bottom of the crime and prove his innocence. Christine wants to investigate on
her own, but when John arrives, they team up again to discover the truth about
the crime. Untangling a web of intrigue, the couple finds themselves in the
center of another dangerous situation and in trouble far deeper than they
expected. A chain of events reveals a bigger conspiracy
than either could have imagined involving a robotics defense contractor, a
private military company, and an assassination plot.
With an assassin on the loose, a trusted
colleague acting as a double agent, and unreliable artificial intelligence
connected to mercenaries who have Cross on their hit list, these two may not
get out of the Lone Star State alive. In the face of danger, will John’s former
instincts kick in? Will he turn back to his old ways?
“The truth about the Central Intelligence Agency is that you never
truly leave the Central Intelligence Agency,” Huff adds. “So, John keeps getting
pulled back in, even when he says he does not want to. The only problem is that
he was really good at what he did. And not just the assassination part. Which
begs the question: Should he go back? Was he only running from guilt when he
decided to leave? The battle waging in John from the beginning is the tension
between who he is now and who he was trained to be. His focus has been
singularly placed on the act of killing. But what he’s suddenly faced with as
he pursues a relationship with Christine and continues to serve as the pastor
of his church is that the instincts drilled into him carry other moral prices
as well. The more the situation in Dallas unravels, the more out of control
John begins to feel with his own mental and spiritual status.”
In Cross Shadow, readers also examine John’s choice to
accept the pastorate at his church despite being young in his faith and
untrained for the ministry. From the outside looking in, he does not seem like
the best candidate to truly lead the church toward growth. Those were real
questions that not only were present when Huff started writing the series but
have also come up from readers after reading A Cross to Kill. The author
cannot wait for readers to see how the story continues for John Cross in Cross
Shadow. Following Cross Shadow, the Shepherd Suspense trilogy will
come to a close with the release of Right Cross in 2021.
Advance
Praise
“In the tradition of Ted
Dekker and Frank Peretti, Cross Shadow is a strong, taut thriller that
retains a Christian sense of optimism and hope while acknowledging the
existence of great evil in the world. Huff raises the stakes on every page all
the way through the white-knuckle finale—like watching an action movie through
the written word.”
~ Kyle
Mann, editor in chief of The Babylon Bee and author of How to Be a
Perfect Christian
“Andrew Huff’s writing is as
fast-paced and tight as his enticing story lines. Masterfully balancing a
well-developed plot with a cast of characters you feel like you’ve known
forever, Huff creates one page-turner after another in his Shepherd Suspense
trilogy. He may be a new author, but his talented word-spinning is anything but
novice and will linger long in the reader’s subconscious.”
~ Betsy
St. Amant Haddox, author of All’s Fair in Love and Cupcakes
About
the Author
He is a two-time finalist
in the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) Genesis Contest for
unpublished authors (2014, 2017) and also won the best screenplay award at the
2015 48 Hour Film Festival in Richmond, Virginia. A Cross to Kill and Cross Shadow in
the Shepherd Suspense series are his first releases.
Huff holds a bachelor of science
in religion degree from Liberty University and a master of arts in Christian education
from Dallas Theological Seminary. He resides in Plano, Texas, with his
beautiful wife, Jae, and their two boys.
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