Zeb Larson reviews The Tithe #1…
A heist story unlike any before! Mega-churches are being robbed for millions of dollars by a crusader hacker group known as Samaritan who is giving the money to causes they deem more worthy. This modern day “Robin Hood” is being pursued by two FBI agents who actually admire their quarry but want to stop the theft before it escalates.
The Tithe will probably seem familiar to a lot of readers, because it borrows a lot of familiar elements from other crime stories. The premise? A group of thieves rip off corrupt church leaders and redistribute the money as the FBI tracks them down. Even if you’ve seen a lot of these components before, there’s still a fun story here. I will not be discussing any spoilers ahead.
In a particularly opulent mega-church, Pastor Miles Tibbett is collecting money from the churchgoers. Unbeknownst to him, a group known as Samaritan robs him at the same time while broadcasting evidence of his misdeeds and detonating a fake bomb. Agent Dwayne Campbell and his partner/computer expert Jimmy Miller examine the scene and recognize Samaritan’s handiwork. The group only strikes at corrupt churches, and they’ve become more brazen after their early attempts at giving the money back to charity failed. However much Campbell and Miller respect Samaritan, now they’re going to have to hunt them down.
This is certainly a book that takes a dim view of organized religion, especially the rise of televangelist mega-churches. Hawkins opens the book with a quote by Jim Bakker, the televangelist who popularized so-called “prosperity theology” before he went to prison for fraud (don’t worry, he managed to get himself out of prison early and nab another TV show, which Hawkins even writes down for the reader). Hawkins really manages to twist the knife in this book, with a few snide jibes about crying speeches and fake charities. These people make easy bad guys, because few people are more contemptible than people of God who steal from their parishioners. They’re not going to be the interesting part of the book, though: Campbell’s hunt for Samaritan is the real action.
I can’t help but think that Hawkins was influenced by Boondock Saints, what with the plot being about a FBI agent forced to chase after con men who he at least partly sympathizes with. This book does have a few old tropes thrown into it: the former criminal-turned-FBI Agent, the law enforcement who sympathizes with his target, and the banter between the younger and older partner. And while the bad guys are certainly effective bad guys, they may be a little too easy. They’re easy to hate if you’re not religious (or even if you are), but they’re not bad guys with a lot of depth. And of course, if you believe in this kind of Christianity, it will seem very negatively biased. To be fair to Hawkins, Campbell’s character is openly religious and distances himself from the schmucks who got robbed, so I don’t think is an example of an atheist bashing on religion.
So, the overall story isn’t the most sophisticated, but it’s also pretty fun to read. I have a feeling that will be the summary of the book as a whole once it’s done. If nothing else, you get to watch some guys who really deserve it get screwed over by honorable thieves. Heist stories are clichéd, but they’re clichéd because the formula works.
Zeb Larson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pnc360pUDRI&list=PL18yMRIfoszFLSgML6ddazw180SXMvMz5
Originally published April 14, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
