Heaven's Wager

infobox Book |
name = Heaven's Wager
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Ted Dekker
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United States of America
language = English
series = The Martyr's Song
genre = Christian fiction, Magical Realism, Crime, Thriller, Psychological thriller
publisher = WestBow Press
release_date = 2000
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 382 (Paperback edition)
isbn = 0849945151
preceded_by =
followed_by = When Heaven Weeps

Heaven's Wager is the first novel written by American author Ted Dekker and his third published. It was first released in 2000 by WestBow Press.

Plot Overview

The novel opens with protagonist Kent Anthony signing a multi-million dollar contract for a remarkable banking security system that he has developed. While on a business trip to seal the details, he receives a phone call telling him that his wife is seriously ill. He arrives at the hospital just to see his wife die before his eyes, terminating his happiness. Worse, he later learns that his bosses have taken advantage of his absence from the meeting to take the credit, and twenty million dollars, for his program.

Kent vigorously fights to re-claim his fortune, but the legal battle appears useless. About a month later, his son, Spencer is killed by a hit-and-run driver, making Kent inconsolable. In a scene mirroring another near the beginning of the book, he walks past a homeless man on his way to work, no longer so confident. An offhand comment from the man leads Kent to jokingly entertain the notion of using his system to steal twenty million dollars from the bank, but he soon becomes engrossed with the idea, plotting every detail over the next few months. He meets up with a former colleague, Lacy, and considers giving up his plan for her, but in the end curtly informs her that he is going to steal an outrageous amount of money and leave for good. "It's either this or suicide," he breaks down, and she reluctantly agrees to secrecy.

A great deal of the novel is spent on Kent's "perfect crime". Posing as a morgue attendant, he steals a bullet-riddled body and transports it to the bank, where he uses a "backdoor" in the security system (about which only he knows) to steal twenty cents from one hundred million accounts each. The program that he accesses leaves no trace, and he installs a virus onto each account from which he steals designed to return the twenty cents if the customer complains. After depositing the embezzled millions into separate banks, Kent leaves the corpse and sets the bank on fire, staging an attempted robbery and arson. The press believes Kent to be the victim of the "murder", and no one even suspects that money has been stolen.

Kent moves to the Caribbean to finally live out his dream life, and also uses his program to hack into the banking system and frame his bosses for the theft of millions of dollars. Despite everything going off unhitched, he finds himself unsatisfied with everything; the narrator takes these moments to reflect upon life, maintaining the attitude that "when you got right down to it, life sucked":

"People's dreams acted as a sort of barrier between life and death. Take them away—let people actually live those dreams—and you would be mopping up the suicides by the dumpster full... Like an amusement ride, falling weightlessly for a moment, and then a wrenching crash. The grave. The end... [I] n the end it's all for the grave, anyway." (Chapter 38)

After hopelessly yearning for Lacy for several nights, Kent (now Kevin Stillman and disguised by plastic surgery) returns to the United States and approaches Lacy, but finds that she is still in love with the "dead" Kent Anthony and won't even give "Kevin" a chance. Utterly depressed, Kent is ready to commit suicide, but has a vision of his family in Heaven, and God himself telling Kent that he loves him.

The novel ends with Kent sharing his story to a priest who is visiting him in prison.

Biblical Allusions

A good deal of the novel deals with spiritual warfare, and many have said that the story is a modern re-telling of the story of Job.

References