False Witness
by Randy Singer
Tyndale House Publishers
Copyright © April 2011
ISBN 978-1-4143-3569-8
409 Pages
Paperback $13.99
Kindle $9.59
Here is the recipe for False Witness: Add two parts action novel to one part John Grisham courtroom drama, mix in vicious Chinese gangsters and deceptive government agencies, sprinkle liberally with Christianity and stir until well mixed. What you end up with is a hot mess, but not in a bad way.
As the curtain goes up, we are stowing away in the laptop of an Indian mathematical prodigy who is in possession of the magic algorithm, a key to factoring prime numbers which would render useless all of the cryptography used to secure the internet. When he attempts to sell the formula to security experts, we quickly learn that this isn’t going to be your father’s Christian fiction novel. He meets his bloody demise at the hands of the Chinese mafia who wants the algorithm and will stop at nothing to get it.
The prodigy was just the messenger though, the true developer of the formula is his mentor, Professor Kumari, who intended to use the proceeds from the sale to help his persecuted caste (the dalits, formerly known as the ‘untouchables’) find hope through Christianity. That’s about as much religion you will have to grapple with if you’re worried that this book is going to be ‘preachy.’ It’s not. God is in the details here, not the main theme.
Enter Clark and Jessica Shealy, bounty hunters. Clark is pulled into the search for Professor Kumari by the desperate Chinese mafia who kidnap his wife to gain access to his shadowy connections in the bounty hunting world. With less than 24 hours to find Kumari and save his wife, Clark begins a whirlwind manhunt that finally nets him the prize. Can he trade the professor for his wife and live to tell about it? End Act 1.
In Act 2, Clark and Jessica are no longer Clark and Jessica. They are part of the witness protection program but their identities have been compromised and again they are being hunted. They turn to a group of legal students to sue the government to be re-instated with new identities. However, before Kumari was handed over to the Chinese mafia, he gave Clark the encrypted formula and a promise that he would get the encryption key at a later date. Now that he has the formula, the government feel that he has welched on their deal and they aren’t going to re-instate the couple until they’ve turned it over.
For me, the legal part dragged a bit but Randy Singer is truly in his element here and I’m sure Grisham enthusiasts will find the courtroom drama riveting. I’ll fast forward a bit. Clark and Jessica head to India, find the encryption key and enlightenment, then return to do battle with the nefarious head of the Chinese mafia. He is finally taken into custody and as the dramatic finale unfolds… well, you’ll just have to read for yourself, won’t you?
False Witness is a fast-paced thriller or maybe a courtroom drama, or perhaps just about good versus evil. However you slice it, it will keep you guessing until the very end. Although it has Christian underpinnings, anyone should be able to relate to the characters and enjoy the twists and turns as we follow the magic algorithm from hand to hand to hand.