“Listen. The Sanctuary of the Redeemers on Shotover Scarp is named after a damned lie for there is no redemption that goes on there and less sanctuary.”

The Sanctuary of the Redeemers is a vast and desolate place—a place without joy or hope. Most of its occupants were taken there as boys and for years have endured the brutal regime of the Lord Redeemers whose cruelty and violence have one singular purpose—to serve in the name of the One True Faith.

In one of the Sanctuary’s vast and twisting maze of corridors stands a boy. He is perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old—he is not sure and neither is anyone else. He has long-forgotten his real name, but now they call him Thomas Cale. He is strange and secretive, witty and charming, violent and profoundly bloody-minded. He is so used to the cruelty that he seems immune, but soon he will open the wrong door at the wrong time and witness an act so terrible that he will have to leave this place, or die.

His only hope of survival is to escape across the arid Scablands to Memphis, a city the opposite of the Sanctuary in every way: breathtakingly beautiful, infinitely Godless, and deeply corrupt.

But the Redeemers want Cale back at any price… not because of the secret he now knows but because of a much more terrifying secret he does not.

Orphaned Thomas Cale just know The Sanctuary of the Redeemers’ inside walls. There he is trained in the most torturous ways to become resilient, and be part of the future the Redeemers seem to plan, that involves the end of all the sins, in a doctrine that goes beyond the most fanatic cult. Cale wants to escape, and it’s a terrible torture happening to another person that makes him take action.

With two companions, Vague Henry and Kleist, Cale flees from the Sanctuary and has his first contact with the outside world. Now he needs to learn how to survive, how to be and how to escape the Redeemers, that want him back at all costs.

The Left Hand of God was a strong and heavy reading. The religious issues were well build, and Cale is a character so good to read that you can’t believe he is just a boy. He has a darkness that impressed me, and his personality is a little ambiguous, which is well thought, as he was tortured and feed with violence all his life.

Henry and Kleist are also strong support characters, and gave the book a beautiful balance. Hoffman strong point is the way he build his characters, putting a lot of thought on their actions and phrases. It takes a lot of planning, and he was spot on with the characters of this book. The plot is also good, even if a little worn out.

I had small problems with some parts of the narrative, were I thought Paul Hoffman put the focus on things I didn’t want to know about, trying to prolong the scenes. Overcoming this, I thought this book was on point, and couldn’t get my hands on The Last Four Things soon enough.

Author: Paul Hoffman
Country: United States
Language: English
Genre(s): Fantasy, Dystopian
Publisher: Penguin Group
Publication date: January 7, 2010
Pages: 436
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