The Left Behind Complete Set, Series 1-12

by Tim LaHaye

“I would,” Rayford said, “but I would also like to be sure that the message light is lit and that they are flagged down for an urgent message should they visit the front desk.”

Just want to point out that Rayford knows a bomb is going to drop, and he doesn’t tell the receptionist to evacuate the building. He only wants to warn Chloe and Buck. Our hero.

Buck had had innumerable run-ins with Verna Zee in the Chicago office. Once he felt she had overstepped her bounds and had moved too quickly into her former boss’s office after Lucinda Washington disappeared in the Rapture. Then, when Buck himself was demoted for ostensibly missing the most important assignment of his life, Verna did become Chicago bureau chief and lorded it over him. Now that he was the publisher, he had been tempted to fire her. But he had let her remain, provided she did the job and kept her nose clean.

Once again, our hero

Even feisty Verna seemed shell-shocked

Buck rushed in and shut the door. He dialed The Drake and asked for his own room. Hearing the fear in Rayford’s voice, not to mention the message itself, made the color drain from his face. Buck called information for the number of the Land Rover dealership in Arlington Heights. He asked for the sales manager and said it was an emergency. Within a minute, the man was on the line. As soon as Buck identified himself, the man said, “Everything all right with the—” “The car is fine, sir. But I need to reach my wife, and she’s driving it right now. I need the phone number on that built-in phone.”

Buck ordered Verna Zee to shut the door on her way out and to leave him alone until he was off the phone.

Once again, in the spirit of a “Shut up, Chloe,” but not technically Chloe

“Cameron! Please don’t hang up on me! Israel has been spared the terrible bombings that your country has suffered, but Rabbi Ben-Judah’s family was abducted and slaughtered! His house has burned to the ground. I pray he is safe, but no one knows where he is!”

Verna poked her head in the door and said, “I’m not a secretary, you know, and I’m certainly not your secretary!” Buck had never been angrier with anyone. He stared at Verna. “I’m coming across this desk to kick that door shut. You had better not be in the way.” The cell phone was ringing. Verna still stood there. Buck rose from his chair, phone still to his ear, and stepped up onto the desk and across Verna’s mess of papers. Her eyes grew wide as he lifted his leg, and she ducked out of the way as he kicked the door shut with all his might. It sounded like a bomb and nearly toppled the wall partitions. Verna screamed. Buck almost wished she’d been in the doorway.

It’s like the book has given up trying to make us root for Buck, and he’s just a blatant dick now.

“Buck, something in Daddy’s voice made me not even take the time to get anything from our room.”

“Yes. Oh, Buck, I’m being pulled over by the police! I made a U-turn and I was speeding, and I went through a light, and I was even on the sidewalk for a while.” “Chloe, listen! You know the old saying about how it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission?” “You want me to try to outrun him?” “You’ll probably be saving his life! There’s only one reason your father would want us out of Chicago as far and as fast as possible!”

Hell yeah! Chloe gets to be the one driving in the car chase?! This is downright progressive for a Tim LaHaye joint.

But then he heard an explosion, tires squealing, a scream, and silence. Within seconds the electricity went off in the Global Community Weekly office. Buck felt his way out into the hall where battery-operated emergency lights near the ceiling illuminated the doors. “Look at that!” someone shouted, and the staff pushed its way through the front doors and began climbing atop their own cars to watch a huge aerial attack on the city of Chicago.

Damn! When am I gonna get that car chase?

“Chicago should be under retaliatory attack, even as we speak. Thank you for your part in this, and for the strategic nonuse of radioactive fallout. I have many loyal employees in that area, and though I expect to lose some in the initial attack, I need not lose any to radiation to make my point.”

“Did you hear that, readers? There was no radiation, so don’t worry about it.” — Tim

Someone else spoke up. “Shall we watch the news?” “Good idea,” Carpathia said.

Whyyyyyyyyyyyy

Rayford wanted to kill him where he sat. He knew full well the man was the Antichrist, and he also knew that this very person would be assassinated one day and be resurrected from the dead by Satan himself. Rayford had never dreamed he might be an agent in that assassination, but at that instant he would have applied for the job. He fought for composure. Whoever killed this man would be merely a pawn in a huge cosmic game. The assassination and resurrection would only make Carpathia more powerful and satanic than ever.

It’s not like Rayford is restraining his vengeful side for any moral reasons, only the strategic ones.

it was all Rayford could do not to breathe a huge sigh of relief in the man’s face.

“Who’s got a cell phone I can borrow?” Buck shouted over the din in the parking lot of Global Community Weekly. A woman next to him thrust one into his hands, and he was shocked to realize she was Verna Zee. “I need to make some long-distance calls,” he said quickly. “Can I skip all the codes and just pay you back?” “Don’t worry about it, Cameron. Our little feud just got insignificant.”

Lol, Buck didn’t even get to be the bigger man when it came to ending his conflict with Verna

His father chuckled, maddening Buck. “You’re not going to lose me, big boy.

Yippee, Rayford thought.

Buck was on the phone with Loretta when Verna Zee slipped behind the wheel. She slung her oversized bag onto the seat behind her, then had trouble fastening her seat belt, she was shaking so. Buck shut off the phone. “Verna, are you all right? I just talked with a woman from our church who has a room and private bath for you.”

What?

A mini traffic jam dissipated

Is it worth specifying “mini”? Wouldn’t it just be a traffic jam?

“Cameron, why are you doing this for me?” “Why not? You lent me your phone.” “But I’ve been so awful to you.”

Verna has been annoying to Buck, but Buck threatened to kick a door into her face, so who’s been awful to whom?

“Cameron! You must be frantic!” “Frankly, I am.”

The potentate looked amused as he was being introduced and winked at a couple of his ambassadors. He pretended to lick his finger and smooth his eyebrows, as if primping for his audience. The others stifled chuckles. Rayford wished he had a weapon.

“As you know,

United States of North America

Did the USA get rebranded while I wasn’t looking, or is this supposed to be a flub on Carpathia’s part?

Verna Zee’s car was a junky old import. It was rattly and drafty, a four-cylinder automatic. In short, it was a dog.

Okay, this is the 3rd car we’ve gotten a detailed description of within four chapters. Maybe this is just a writing quirk that LaHaye developed between writing books 2 and 3.

What he didn’t know was whether she would take Lake Shore Drive (which locals referred to as the LSD) or the Kennedy. This was more her bailiwick than his, but his question soon became moot. Chicago was in flames, and most of the drivers of cars that clogged the Kennedy in both directions stood on the pavement gaping at the holocaust. Buck would have given anything to have had the Range Rover at that moment.

Buck: “Oh, look, Chicago is in flames. Damn. Should have taken my good car.” Yeah, don’t stop to be horrified by the destruction or anything.

Ever since he had become a believer, Buck had considered the privilege of giving his life in the service of God.

By the time he got to Sheridan Road along the lake, he found it barricaded but not guarded. Apparently every law enforcement officer and emergency medical technician was busy. He thought about ramming one of the construction horses, but didn’t want to do that to Verna’s car. He stepped out and moved the horse enough to drive through. He was going to leave the opening there, but someone hollered from an apartment, “Hey! What are you doing?” Buck looked up and waved in the direction of the voice. “Press!” he shouted. “All right, then! Carry on!”

There he sat with the unenviable task of carrying Antichrist himself wherever he wanted to go.

Why did LaHaye suddenly decide to start using “the Antichrist” and just “Antichrist” interchangeably? I thought this was just a typo the first time, but now it seems to be a clear choice.

The barricade that shut down Lake Shore Drive and the exit looked like something from the set of Les Misérables.

Buck came to a screeching halt, swerving and sliding about fifty feet before his right front tire blew. The car spun as emergency workers danced out of the way.

How fast were you going in downtown Chicago that your car skidded 50+ feet with the brakes locked?

Two other officers joined the first and roughly frisked Buck. “Any guns, knives, needles?” Buck went on the offensive. “Nope, just two sets of IDs.” The cops pulled a wallet out of each of his back pockets, one containing his own papers, the other the documents of the fictitious Herb Katz.

I don’t know if LaHaye knows what “going on the offensive” actually means

“So, where were you goin’ in such an all-fired hurry?”

“All-fired” seems like it was definitely a stand-in for a swear

Most of all though, right now, right here, he cared about nothing but Chloe. He had allowed the thought to invade his mind that he might have lost her. He knew he would see her again at the end of the Tribulation, but would he have the will to go on without her? She had become the center of his life, around which everything else revolved. During the short time they had been together, she had proved more than he ever could have hoped for in a wife. It was true they were bound in a common cause that made them look past the insignificant and the petty, which seemed to get in so many other couples’ way. But he sensed she would never have been catty or a nag anyway. She was selfless and loving. She trusted him and supported him completely. He would not stop until he found her. And until he knew for sure, he would never believe her dead.

I think this summarizes Tim LaHaye’s idea woman pretty well. And, well, this ain’t great.

He pressed the phone to his ear. “The mobile customer you have called—” Buck swore and gripped Verna’s phone so tightly he thought it might break. He took a step and pulled his arm back as if to fire the blasted machine into the side of a building. He followed through but hung onto the phone, realizing it would be the stupidest thing he had ever done. He shook his head at the word that had burst from his lips when that cursed recording had come on. So, the old nature is still just under the surface.

The writing here is shockingly bad, not to mention the whole swearing == old nature thing

The senior flight attendant of a crew that was two-thirds as many people as the entire passenger list rapped on the cockpit door and opened it as Rayford taxied slowly down the runway.

Maybe the worst character introduction I’ve ever read

Rayford could have begun gradually and slowly picked up enough speed to go airborne. But everybody enjoyed a powerful takeoff once in a while, right? He throttled up and took off down the runway with such speed and power that he and McCullum were driven back into their seats. “Yeehah!” McCullum cried. “Ride ’em cowboy!” Rayford had a lot to think about, and taking off for only the second time in a new aircraft, he should have remained focused on the task at hand. But he couldn’t resist pressing that intercom button again and hearing what he might have done to Carpathia. In his mind’s eye he pictured the man somersaulting all the way to the back of the plane, and he only wished there was a back door he could open from the cockpit. “Oh, my goodness!” he heard over the intercom. “Potentate, are you all right?” Rayford heard movement, as if others were trying to unstrap themselves to help Carpathia, but with the plane still hurtling down the runway, those people would be pinned in their seats by centrifugal force. “I am all right,” Carpathia insisted. “It is my own fault. I will be fine.” Rayford turned off the intercom and concentrated on his takeoff. Secretly, he hoped Carpathia had been leaning against one of the seats at the time of the initial thrust. That would have spun him around and nearly flipped him over. Probably my last chance to inflict any justice.

Rayford trying to passive-aggressively injure Carpathia

Rayford didn’t know how much longer he could take being the devil’s own pilot.

Buck was in reasonably good shape for a man in his early thirties, but now his joints ached and his lungs pleaded for air as he sprinted to Chicago Avenue and headed east toward the lake.

How far south might Chloe have gotten before turning around? She had to turn around. Otherwise, how could she have gone off the road and wound up on that side?

I refuse to open a map to figure out the geography of downtown Chicago. It's the book's responsibility to make geography clear, when relevant.

Having not planned what to say, Buck found himself majoring on the majors. “Are you all right? Are you hurt? Where are you?” He hadn’t told her he loved her or that he was scared to death about her or that he was glad she was alive. He would assume she knew that until he could tell her later.

Rayford assumed that McCullum assumed that Rayford was sleeping.

“Potentate,” he whispered, “we’ll need replacements for Hernandez, Halliday, and your fiancée, will we not?” Rayford sat up. Was it possible? Had they already eliminated those three, and why Hattie Durham? He felt responsible that his former senior flight attendant was now not only in Carpathia’s employ, but was also his lover and the soon-to-be mother of his child. So, was he not going to marry her? Did he not want a child? He had put on such a good front before Rayford and Amanda when Hattie had announced the news. Carpathia chuckled. “Please do not put Ms. Durham in the same category as our late friends. Hernandez was expendable. Halliday was a temporary necessity. Let us replace Hernandez and not worry about replacing Halliday. He served a purpose. The only reason I asked you to replace Hattie is that the job has passed her by. I knew that her clerical skills were suspect when I brought her on. I needed an assistant, and of course I wanted her. But I will use the excuse of her pregnancy to get her out of the office.”

Maybe there was some advantage to knowing this stuff, and perhaps it might be useful to the Tribulation Force.

That only just occurred to you?

Chloe seemed to be dangling from the seat belt.

Seemed to be

“I just have one question for you first. Is this how our married life is going to be? I’m going to buy you expensive cars, and you’re going to ruin them the first day?” “Normally that would be funny—” “Sorry.”

“You’re right,” he said. “Can you make it?” “I think I can,” she said. “I’m the little engine who could.”

Groan

The more the car moved, the more it seemed to want to move, and to Buck that was good news—provided he could keep from falling. First the car moved, then the tree moved, then both seemed to readjust themselves at once.

The heavy vehicle, left tires pressed against the concrete and several deeply bowed branches pushing it from the right side, began slipping to the right. Buck buried his head in his hands to avoid the springing out of those branches as the Range Rover fell clear of them. They nearly knocked him into the wall again. Once the Range Rover was free of the pressure of the branches, it lurched down onto its right side tires and nearly toppled. Had it rolled that way, it would have crushed him into the tree. But as soon as those tires hit the ground, the whole thing bounced and lurched, and the left tires landed just free of the concrete. The momentum made the left side of the vehicle smash into the concrete, and finally it came to rest.

I have a hard time putting my finger on why, but this writing makes it so hard to picture how exactly this car falls out of the tree. It feels at once too detailed and not detailed enough. Very odd thing to encounter.

He headed back up toward the overpass where Chloe stood, favoring one foot and holding her left wrist in her other hand. To Buck she had never looked better.