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Book Review of Held Hostage: A Serial Bank Robber's Road to Redemption

Held Hostage: A Serial Bank Robber's Road to Redemption


Ken Cooper starts the book describing how empty his life is - to the point where he robs banks for excitement. Granted, he likes the money too, but mainly he is continuing a pattern of seeking thrills. He's pretty successful, both in his 'real job' and in his criminal enterprises until the inevitable happens and everything crashes down resulting in his wounding, arrest, and imprisonment. His descriptions of this and of prison life take up about 1/4 of the book. He then finds Christ, something he's resisted in the past. As Christian books go, this is interesting, and his actions, attitudes, and experiences do provide a lot of insight into how accepting Christ as Savior can change a person's life. It is just that much of the info is redundant and in some respects lifeless. Still, I was glad to have read the book, the writing is fine, and he has definitely had an interesting time since adopting this new way of behaving and thinking.