What If...? [Hardcover]

Steve N. Lee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2, 2008

The ice caps are melting.
Rainforests burning.
Millions starving...

The world is dying. Right now.

When a mysterious stranger appears to be healing New York City's sick merely through touch, a media frenzy catapults him to superstar status.

When he then claims he can heal the entire world of hunger, injustice, and suffering as easily as he seems able to heal a sick child, thousands rally to his cause, desperate for a saviour to snatch the world from the edge of darkness.

But not everyone is eager to see the world changed.

Driven by insatiable greed for money and power, corporate America, organized crime, even the mighty White House will stop at nothing to ensure the world stays just the way it is: under their control - poverty, disease, wars and all.

***

A disillusioned journalist, Mary battles her scepticism to finally believe in the stranger's gift. Seeing him as mankind's last hope for creating a utopia, she befriends him to try to realize the world she's always dreamed of.

But will the world embrace a visionary with such a gift? Or will fear, greed, or a holy war see it rip itself apart?

Mary quickly discovers that changing the world is not only difficult but downright deadly.

Hurled into a raging storm of bullets, doubles crosses, car chases, and conspiracies, Mary helps this enigmatic stranger fight for his vision to become a reality. But what vision is that?

Can he truly heal?
Does he really want to end suffering?
Or, with immeasurable wealth the prize, is this the greatest confidence trick in history, masterminded to swindle billions from a world desperate for a saviour to save it?
On a roller coaster adventure overflowing with mystery, shocking revelations, and pulse-pounding danger, Mary realizes there's nowhere to hide from the fate that awaits them and which will shake the entire globe.

Dare you read 'What if...?'? - It'll tear your world apart!

Editorial Reviews

Review

A fast-paced thriller... it is also strong on environmental awareness... [It] grips the imagination and makes you want to see how it ends.

Review

An engaging and exciting thriller with a difference. It would hold its own with many of the books in the bestseller lists - and then some.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 350 pages
• Publisher: Blue Zoo (January 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0955652510
• ISBN-13: 978-0955652516
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,554,947 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reviewed by Barbara McDuffie for Breeni Books, November 2, 2008

By 

Breeni Books "www.breenibooks.com" (Rockwell, NC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: What If...? (Hardcover)

The story begins at midnight on Christmas Eve with a woman named Mary. Sound familiar? But this Mary is a woman of our times: educated enough to be skeptical of anything that doesn't fit the norm but, as a journalist, open-minded enough to want to know more. Mary is lying on a Manhattan sidewalk as her life bleeds out; the victim of an automobile accident caused by her intoxicated boyfriend. But suddenly she is touched by a disheveled-looking homeless man and life returns to her body. This is our introduction to John Connolly, who disappears into the cold night.

Mary next awakens in a hospital with no lacerations or hemorrhaging; yet her clothes are covered with her blood. She has been diabetic since she was a small child; but tests show she isn't. Mary has been brought back from the brink of death and cured of an incurable disease. The book continues with other stories of the mysterious man who heals people without fanfare or explanation. What if this homeless man is more than he appears to be; a lot more? Mary sets out to find John and is completely surprised by her reaction to him when she does. Other people also have strong feelings about John, and not all of them are favorable. The government is afraid of the feelings he is stirring in the populace. What will they do if they find he cannot fulfill the promise he seems to offer? Why are some people being healed while others die? Is he Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, or some other faith?

What If...? presents the reader with a question. What would humanity do if presented with the opportunity to end suffering, poverty, disease, and all the other evils of the world?

Surely all people would jump at the chance to be part of a better world where everyone has what they need and people co-exist in a caring, loving atmosphere...wouldn't they?

Author Steve Lee has created an intriguing group of characters in a thought-provoking story. As I read his novel, I often found myself wondering what I would do if I found myself in the same circumstances as Mary or Rashid or President Stevens or Al Qaeda. This is a book that invites the reader to put him or herself in the minds and hearts of the characters. There are no truly good guys or bad guys, only people reacting to circumstances. Would I have reacted any differently? But What If...? is not a preachy diatribe about the evils of the world. It is an exciting fictional adventure story that keeps you wondering what will happen next, and what is really happening now.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Would You Believe?, July 23, 2008

By 

Sam Sattler (Spring, Texas) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What If...? (Hardcover)

So, what if some homeless guy starts healing the sick one day, a fellow who remains anonymous as long as he can and asks nothing in return from those whose lives he has saved? Would you believe that he was performing miracles or would your skeptical nature make you certain that he was involved in one of the biggest scams ever pulled on a gullible public? But then what if he healed one of your children, granting that child the future that was about to be lost to some terminal illness? Then would you believe?

When one skeptical New York reporter survives a terrible automobile accident despite losing so much blood that she could not have possibly lived through it, she decides to find the man who reportedly molested her in the street as she was bleeding to death. And when she walks out of the hospital just hours after doctors gave up on saving her life, that is exactly what she does.

It soon becomes obvious to Mary that the man was, in fact, healing her injuries, not molesting her, and she suddenly realizes that she has been handed every reporter's dream story. She comes to understand that she has become part of something much bigger than just a career-making newspaper story, however, and finds herself falling in love with the man and his mission, a turn of events that places her in more danger than she ever could have imagined.

A man like John, a healer and a visionary who wants to change the world forever, is a threat to some powerful people who like things just the way they are. John has a plan, after all, that would end poverty everywhere in the world and allow mankind to live the Utopian lifestyle that has been dreamed of for centuries. His very existence is a threat to those on top of the heap who do not want to lose their power and economic dominance. When the governments of countries such as China and Russia demand that the U.S. put a muzzle on John, he literally becomes a threat to world peace, and there are plenty of people suddenly willing to do whatever it takes to shut him up.

What If? is quite a ride and it has one of the strangest endings I have encountered in a long time. It is a provocative look at what might happen if a true miracle worker were to suddenly appear in the modern day world, a hopeful, but sad, story about the most likely "what if" scenario that would develop from such an event.

Steve N. Lee has written an unusual thriller that will have the reader quickly turning pages almost all the way through it. My only quarrel with Lee's storytelling is the excessive number of pages he used on a rather anticlimactic court trial toward the end of the book. That section, in fact, stalled the book's momentum to such an extent that it became somewhat of a chore to get through it. But that is a small complaint when compared to the pace maintained in the rest of the book.

WARNING: Do not succumb to the temptation to read the book's ending first because this is one time that I can guarantee that you will regret doing that.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Suspense Thriller!, April 26, 2008

By 

Bonny Kirby "Freakish Reader" (Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: What If...? (Hardcover)

Seldom do you see a work of fiction that you not only can't put down, but one that makes you think.

I picked up this novel and could not put it down until I finished it. Keeping you on the edge of your seat, it also makes you take a world that we live in, where we might be heading and the consequences of getting there.

The characters were vivid and developed fully to where you almost miss their presence as the novel ends. I really hope that Lee decided to write another novel, this debut was extraordinary.