“The first time Jude Allman died, he was eight years old.”

This is the first line of Waking Lazarus, a story about a troubled man who becomes an unwilling celebrity after he dies three times over the course of his life. Jude Allman doesn’t know how or why he survived and goes to great lengths to protect himself from the media after he moves to Red Lodge, Montana. Under the assumed name of Ron Gress, Jude works for the local elementary school as a janitor.

He leads a very solitary, paranoia-ridden life until a strange woman named Kristina shows up on his doorstep. Naturally, he thinks she’s a reporter and tries to shoo her away. She convinces him that she is a dying woman looking for answers to the Other Side. In the meantime, children have started disappearing from neighboring towns.

Jude is aware of this and is afraid for his five year-old son, Nathan. He begins experiencing premonitions, first with a suicidal waitress and then with a man he met after a fatal pedestrian accident. When Jude bumps into this man (named Kenneth Sohler) in the men’s bathroom of the local restaurant, he experiences a strong vision that Sohler has someone trapped inside his house against their will. This vision spurns him to Sohler’s house and under the watchful eye of the already paranoid police department.

Suddenly everyone wants to know who Ron Gress really is, including his estranged girlfriend. The police are certain that he is the perpetrator of the child abductions until Nathan is kidnapped with his best friend and his best friend’s mother. Jude is let off the hook, but now he must face his past as he seeks the whereabouts of his son and friend.

T.L. Hines did a great job of weaving this paranormal thriller together. Just when you think you’ve identified the abductor, he throws in another twist to keep you guessing. Highly recommended.