Book Analysis: THR3E

Author: Ted Dekker
Publisher: WestBow (October 2004; 400 pages; paperback)
ISBN: 0849945127
Genre: Suspense

The greatest challenge confronting seminary student Kevin Parson is finishing a philosophy paper on the natures of man. That is, until a mysterious phone call on the way home from school plunges his world into chaos. A man who identifies himself as Slater threatens to blow up Kevin's car unless he solves a riddle and makes a public confession of his sin in three minutes.

Barely escaping a fiery death, Kevin wracks his soul in search of the secret sin deserving of violent death. A press-hungry police detective seems ready to fry the victim, making Kevin feel even less secure and more hunted. Only one thing in his world seems certain anymore: Slater will try again.

A tiny fear begins to uncoil inside him that Slater could be the boy from his buried past. But that's impossible. Isn't it? When Slater's next riddle snares Kevin's childhood sweetheart into the deadly web of terror, it causes Kevin's past and present to come crashing together.

Thr3e begins languidly for the first five pages, and then sucks the reader quickly into a rollercoaster vortex of action and psychological suspense. More than a breather, the setup stages the thematic conflict of the book. What is the nature of man? What is evil? What is good?

This was a riveting read from start to finish, with dynamically escalating stakes that are clear without feeling contrived. The story works on several levels: external, internal, and romantic. The external plot, full of ticking clocks and explosions, surges along. The internal plot is every bit as powerful and captivating, as readers watch a hero they come to sympathize with and genuinely like begin to unravel at the seams. I wanted him to survive! The romantic triangle element is perhaps the weakest of the three, confined narrowly as it is by the limits of plausibility. However, it fulfills its purpose in the story by weaving another thread of tension to tug on the main character.

Perhaps Dekker's finest accomplishment with this novel regarding craft is his excellent use of "deep" point of view. Each point of view (POV) should uniquely be so flavored with the essence of that particular character, that to change the POV of a single scene would alter the entire story. That's the ideal, but it is hard to realize. In Thr3e the choices of which POV to filter scenes to readers create the story. Four characters share the main point of view duties. The way each in his or her POV experiences specific events is the story, because those events only happen that way through that specific character. To examine in detail how Dekker accomplished this would give away the resolution, but suffice it to say that every novel should strive for the POV excellence achieved in Thr3e. A writer would do well to read this book and then ask herself of each scene in her story--Can any other character experience this scene the same way? If another character can, then perhaps that writer should rethink the scene or story to strengthen the POV choice.

It's Dekker's skillful use of POV that also keeps Kevin's secret a secret for so long. In less skillful hands, this could have felt manipulative and alienated readers. It's vital writers play fair with readers regarding pivotal information, backstory, and especially "big secrets." If a POV character knows something and would logically think about it, then readers need to be let in on it, too. But because Kevin and most of the other POV characters genuinely aren't conscious of what his secret is, readers get to discover it in stages with them. It's fair disclosure, and even though it comes as a shock, it feels satisfying.

This story seems highly complex, but as is often the case with Dekker's novels, it is also surprisingly simple in retrospective. Its simplicity is what provides much of its ultimate believability. The only point I stumbled over was how Kevin's reclusive foster family made a living. They had no visible means of income, yet supported a family of three (formerly four), kept a pet, and subscribed to several magazines. Were they on welfare? Did they receive disability? This was not explained. It's a small point that probably got overlooked in building the credibility of more complex events, but I would still like to know.

Everything in this story has layers. Nothing is one-dimensional in significance. It is a master puzzle that kept me glued to the pages until the mind-bending end.