Copyright ©1996, ProMotion, inc.
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T. David Bunn recaptures both this era and its significance for Christians in an exciting historical adventure To the Ends of the Earth. Peopled with pirates, spies, believers, and pagans, the drama accelerates at the pace of a good detective story. Travis, son of an estate manager not far from Carthage, is sent to the Empire's capital, Constantinople, by his father to seek support from his half-brother. The estate has been drained by ever-increasing Roman taxes and by pirates who rob the ships carrying goods to the capital. Travis takes with him the family's remaining fortune in the form of royal purple dye made from mollusks buried on the beach. Even before he departs, someone tries to poison him, and he must defend his ship against pirate attack as he goes.
Once in Constantinople, he finds corruption at every turn, especially at his wealthy half-brother's estate. But he also finds Lydia and her father Hannibal, both stalwart Christians, but the attraction between Lydia and Travis is braced against Travis's lack of belief. Lydia's mother, in her final words before her death, had instructed her daughter that a lifelong love was best cemented through a shared faith. A cloister seems the best place for her to retreat from her growing love for Travis.
At the center of the Empire, Travis goes from one corrupt official to another. Readers will meet followers of Zoroaster and the beginnings of the Arian heresy. Travis is imprisoned in a mine but finds Christianity has penetrated there as well. His wily courage and his longtime servant Raffa help him to escape or outwit his foes, chief among them his two evil half-brothers, Fabian and Brutus (Brutus is a good choice of names for this conspirator).
In the end Travis and Brutus fight it out with razor-sharp knives, and although Travis triumphs he cannot take the life of his brother and enemy. When his servant Raffa grumbles that he lets his enemies slip through his clutches, Travis tells him that he has discovered different answers in Christianity, "a new world, a new life which beckons mightily."
With more turns in plot than a snake's path, Bunn creates a vivid story from this ancient time. The corruption of the era and the powerful antidote of Christian faith are clearly portrayed through characters and action. In addition to being a good writer of fiction (readers know him from the moving stories in The Quilt and the Rendezvous with Destiny series), Bunn has obviously done a lot of study on this fascinating period of history. His research included a year at Oxford University on the development of Christianity as a world religion. He also traveled in the area around the Mediterranean Sea that is the setting for To the Ends of the Earth.
Copyright ©1996, ProMotion, inc.
www@acloserlook.com