By Lars Walker

I’ll get out, I told myself. Rose’ll get me out. Two months, maybe three. I just need courage. I just have to survive.

That’s what I told myself.

But I was way wrong.

Andrew Klavan has completely realized his purpose in writing The Final Hour, the fourth and last in his The Homelanders young adult action series. He’s crafted a moral story that’s so exciting teenage boys will put off going back to their video games until they’ve finished it.

Is it over the top? Unquestionably. Poor Charlie West, the hero, caroms from one deathly peril to another, chapter after chapter. It’s like an Indiana Jones movie, except that Indie wouldn’t be able to keep up Charlie’s pace.

If you’ve been following the series, you’ll know that the first book, The Last Thing I Remember, opened with Charlie waking up bound to a chair in a strange room, with terrorists outside the door discussing how much further to torture him. Since then he’s escaped and learned that (during a year that he’s forgotten completely) he’s been arrested and convicted of the murder of a high school friend. He’s escaped from custody since then, and has been on the run—gradually learning bits and pieces about the terrorists’ plot.

At the start of The Final Hour he’s in custody again, an inmate in a federal prison. The radical Muslim prisoners hate him for opposing terrorists, and try to kill him. He’s rescued by Nazi skinheads who want something from him, but he doesn’t want to have anything to do with them either. And oh yes, the corrupt prison guards have it in for him too.

Through it all, Charlie teaches lessons in Christian decency and patriotism, not by talking about those things, or even thinking about them much, but through practicing them—living out the lessons he’s learned from his parents and his karate teacher, Mike.

Which prepares him for his improbable but edge-of-your seat final confrontation with the murderous Homelanders.

Well done, Andrew Klavan.

Suitable (and highly recommended) for teens and up.

Lars Walker is the author of several fantasy novels, the latest of which is West Oversea.