As you may surmise from the title, Bruce Hennigan's debut novel deals with demonic manifestations and may not be appropriate for the faint of heart. On the other hand, The 13th Demon: Altar of the Spiral Eye follows in the tradition of Frank Peretti's breakout Christian novel This Present Darkness, which opened the door in Christian publishing for a vivid yet Biblical depiction of spiritual warfare in dimensions mostly imperceptible to humans. Hennigan's novel is a gripping page-turner that lures readers from archaeological digs in Mexico to medieval Aztec altars of human sacrifice to a demonically possessed church in the Louisiana bayou. It's Stephen King with a more hopeful outlook.

The 13th Demon begins thirty years ago at a Mexico City dig site where the Aztec altar of the spiral eye is uncovered. There we meet the novel's antagonist, Robert Ketrick, as a teenager where he first makes the acquaintance of a creepy pale man named Lucas who starts him down his chosen path. We're also present when the protagonist is born -- and almost killed by the Lucas-prodded Ketrick.

The story then fast forwards to a few years ago onboard a ship in a stormy sea when an unnamed tortured prisoner is shoved overboard to die. Except his torturer takes pity on him and ties soda bottles to his backpack to keep him afloat. Miraculously, the man survives, though with severe amnesia. Because the backpack contains a slip of paper with the name Jonathan Steel, our protagonist takes that name and "The Jonathan Steel Chronicles" are born.

By the 10th chapter, Steel has fallen in love with his psychiatrist, been attacked by a psychotic member of his rehabilitation group, and witnessed a double murder. And the story's just getting started. Whew!

With all this backstory filled in, we now follow Jonathan Steel in the present day as he uses the money he inherits from the murder victims to track down the 13th demon, who he believes is the real murderer. Which brings us to the abandoned Louisiana church and its weird manifestations of snakes, spiders, blood, and scorpions. Add to this the pastor and his mysteriously pregnant wife. And the ad hoc investigative team Steel assembles, which includes an elderly spitfire linguist specializing in ancient American languages, a middle-aged physicist with a secret health problem, and her rebellious teen son, and you have a volatile yet effective combination of characters.

Hennigan's storytelling skills are surprisingly well-represented in the look of the book. I say surprisingly because it is produced by iUniverse, which is what used to be called a vanity publisher. But the attractively designed cover, the high-quality binding, and the overall professional look impressed me so much that I had to look up iUniverse just to verify that they were indeed still a self-publisher. When I visited their site, I noticed their tag line is "the new face of publishing." If The 13th Demon is a sample of that new face, it's a very attractive one indeed. While there are still more typos than in a traditionally published book and a few sometimes jarring misattributions of characters, the overall quality is much improved over self-published books of even a few years ago.

At the back of the book, Hennigan includes a helpful resource list for further reading on science and spirituality as well as a sneak peek at a sequel, The 12th Demon: The Blood of the Vampyre. There is no word on whether the sequel (prequel?) will be with iUniverse or a major publisher. The writing quality and storytelling prowess are certainly worthy of a major publisher's attention.

Heather Hunt is a business editor in Connecticut. For fun she reads, writes, tries to figure out "Lost," laughs at the antics in "The (American) Office," and enjoys tennis and cycling. Her "Joan of Arcadia" spec script was a Finalist at Writesafe.com. Check out her blog at www.viewfromstonewater.blogspot.com.