I love to read. By God’s grace I am a pretty fast reader; I usually read a couple books each week. I find it helpful to summarize my thoughts on each book and I offer those thoughts in the hope that you will be encouraged to either read or pass over the given title.

The Creedal Imperative by Carl Trueman. He seems to be a divisive figure of sorts in the “gospel-centered” circles in which I live, but Carl Trueman is a gift to God’s church. I find him to be a voice of sanity in American evangelicalism, one who offers incisive cultural analysis and fresh articulation of the Christian tradition. All these things are on display in The Creedal Imperative, which seeks to argue “that the need for creeds and confessions is not just a practical imperative for the church but is also a biblical imperative” (19). I came to the book as a convinced confessionalist, but Trueman put more biblical and theological meat on that skeleton. A book every pastor ought not to miss!

The Yard by Alex Grecian. Grecian debut novel in his “Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad” series is not properly historical fiction, but it is quite close. Jack the Ripper’s famed reign of terror has runs its course and the London police force finds itself scorned by the larger community. Twelve detectives are charged with investigating the thousands of people Victorian London swallows up each year. The Murder Squad’s skills are put to the test when one of their own suffers ghastly death. The Yard was a fun read that broke the mold of the normal detective-ish books I often read that are strong on plot and weak on character development. Grecian offers a solid plot thick with intriguing characters. What most fascinated me was how the story reveals the development of forensic science. You mean they didn’t always know fingerprints are unique and integral to solving cases?!? I look forward to his second installment in the series.