In Salvation, the first book in the Jonah Grady series by Frank Faustino, a gay former SAS operative, Jonah Grady returns to the place he once escaped from twenty years ago. He is coming back to settle his parents’ estate and his past once and for all. Kentucky mountains broke him, and he wandered the world, survived the SAS Selection, and became a powerful weapon himself, the kind that Dominion should not have messed with. But coming back is the greatest mistake he could ever have made, because something more sinister awaits him. It is a hunt, one in which he becomes the ultimate prey. The Redemption Hunt is a sick game organized by religious fanatics who believe that killing him will cleanse their souls. In the dangerous wilderness, the game of survival begins for Jonah. Does he have enough fight in him to dismantle Dominion?

Frank Faustino's story feels strangely familiar and imagines what could happen when we surrender our governance to fanatics. It is what happens in the Dominion of America, a world in which the scripture is twisted (and we hear preachers twist scripture for political gain today), citizens undergo all forms of surveillance, and where rich men have created their secluded havens. It is impossible to read Salvation and not shudder at the prospect that the world described in this book is about to happen. The characters are elaborately drawn. Jonah is the hero whom powerful men and the system have worked hard to break, but he transforms his struggles into an energy that forces him to stay alive and fight. The prose sparkles through every page, and the plot moves at a relentless pace, making you feel as though you were riding a wave.

Salvation by Frank Faustino begins when Jonah Grady encounters an immigration screening and control system heavily weighted to keep "undesirables" out of the country; these undesirables are defined as any non-Christians, sexual deviants, or anyone with a police record. Jonah, a gay man, is returning to his hometown in Kentucky to settle his deceased parents' estate after leaving there twenty years earlier to escape the growing religious movement. He quickly learns that his parents' deaths gave the "Redeemers" an opportunity to lure him back home to face retribution for his sexual deviancy and to reindoctrinate him in the new world order. But Jonah is no longer a young, inexperienced man, and his twenty years of service in England with the Special Air Service have made him an expert in asymmetrical warfare, right at home in any terrain and guerrilla fighting tactics.

In Salvation, Frank Faustino demonstrates a keen sense of value with prose that maintains a high level of verisimilitude, the sense of reality that makes fiction read as true to life. The opening chapter had me thinking of a "1984"-like future that also reads like the current events unfolding now across the United States. But that quickly changed as Jonah met his enemies, and the story became an amazing adventure of warlike tactics, an ever-escalating tension between the hunters and Jonah, the hunted. Faustino's sense of reality is such that even current impossibilities, like "nanobots" that, within minutes, repair physical damage from broken bones or major bleeding wounds, read as realistic. Salvation is a fast-paced, page-turning story that pulls no punches in its descriptions of sexual acts and language, culminating in a climax that satisfies while leaving the door open for a follow-up story. I'm definitely looking forward to reading the next novel.

In Frank Faustino’s Salvation, former SAS operative Jonah Grady returns to the very place he escaped from years ago to settle his parents’ estate after they died in mysterious circumstances. Dominion had done a lot of damage to him before, and as a gay man, he has endured a lot and has been shaped by painful circumstances. For twenty years, he traveled the seas and survived the SAS. But coming back to bury his past in a place that broke him is the worst mistake of his life, because what awaits him is a group of fanatics who believe that killing him will cleanse their souls. Now he becomes prey to the Redemption Hunt, a sickening game organized by fanatics who will stop at nothing to make sure he is captured, tortured, and killed. What chances of survival does he have?

Salvation examines the effects of religious extremism and what happens when people subscribe to the idea that brutality and inhumane treatment are sanctioned when orchestrated under the banner of religious fanaticism. Frank Faustino paints a portrait of an America that is broken, where there are camps for citizens considered sick, where those who don’t subscribe to the religious ideology that rules Dominion are persecuted, and where those with money and power have constructed exclusive havens for themselves. This story felt so real, and as I read, I had echoes of what is happening in the world today. When a cult runs a country, freedom suffers, and Jonah Grady’s story testifies to this. He is a memorable character, and his inner world, his revolutionary thoughts, and his determination to break down Dominion make the story compelling.

Jonah Grady could not have left America at a better time. A rash of new extreme laws had turned his once quiet and welcoming hometown into a gay man's nightmare. His escape came at a steep price. Jonah swore he would never go back there. When news filters through that his parents have passed away in suspicious circumstances, the ex-Special Forces man decides the time has come to cross the American version of Checkpoint Charlie one more time and settle unfinished business. He suspects that there is more to this forced return than meets the eye, but he has no idea how close to home his hunch is. Only time will tell if he can outrun the gauntlet that awaits his return in Frank Faustino's Salvation.

Gritty action scenes and tense dialogue highlight Frank Faustino's Salvation: Jonah Grady Book 1. The author blends contemporary issues surrounding politics, religion, and lifestyle choices in the world-building. The result of this mix is an uncomfortably realistic story. Faustino unfolds Jonah's origin story in stages, immersing readers as they grasp the reasons for his anger toward those he believes have wronged him. His uneasy relationship with his parents creates a thought-provoking subplot that will resonate with perceptive readers. The attention to detail in the devices and weaponry during Jonah's activities in the wild will excite action enthusiasts. What stands out in Salvation is how Jonah's actions seem borderline criminal, even when he is the victim of violence, painting him as the unusual antihero in a multilayered drama. I look forward to the next book in this fascinating series.