David Gregory's Dinner With A Perfect Stranger~Reviewed

Dinner With A Perfect Stranger
By David Gregory
Hardcover; 100 pages
Published by WaterBrook Press
ISBN: 1-57856-905-2

A mysterious envelope arrives on Nick Cominsky's desk amid stacks of credit-card applications and business-related junk mail. Although his seventy-hour workweek has already eaten into his limited family time, Nick can't pass up the opportunity to see what kind of plot his colleagues have hatched.

The normally confident, cynical Nick soon finds himself thrown off-balance, drawn into an intriguing discussion with a baffling man who comfortably discusses everything from world religions to the existence of heaven and hell. And this man who calls himself Jesus also seems ot know a disturbing amount about Nick's personal life.

As the evening progresses, their conversation touches on life, God, meaning, pain, faith, and doubt—and it seems that having Dinner with a Perfect Stranger may change Nick's life forever.

This small book carries a significant punch. Nick throws his blunt skepticism at his dinner companion from the moment he sits down. Certain the man is an actor his buddies from work hired, Nick looks around the room, waiting for the guys to pop out from behind the lattice or maybe from the men's room. But this is no joke. Nick tries to leave, positive the man is a nut, but finds himself strangely drawn back into the conversation. And Jesus challenges Nick's skepticism at every turn.

I couldn't put the book down; I read it in one sitting. Then I gave it to my husband, who unlike me is not an avid reader. He read it in two sittings, then told me to buy three more copies to give to friends who were skeptical about Jesus. Mr. Gregory has written a powerful evangelistic tool—for thinkers. When Jesus talks about his childhood and his mother, Nick, thinking anyone with a modicum of Biblical knowledge and half an imagination could come up with the same story, tells Jesus, "You're going to have to do better than that."

"To do what?" Jesus asked. That was a good question. What exactly did Nick expect from a guy pretending to be Jesus?

Novel Reviews' companion site, Novel Journey, is going to be doing an interview with David Gregory, and I for one, can't wait to hear how he developed the imaginative idea for this herculean little book. A must read for everyone.

Reviewed by Ane Mulligan
www.anemulligan.com