Into the Fire

Ken Cooper’s memoir Held Hostage will release in August, 2009, under Baker Publishing Group’s Chosen division. The full title is Held Hostage, A Serial Bank Robber’s Road to Redemption. And what a rough road it was. Immersed in a double life of accomplishments and positions of respect but fueled by the adrenaline rushes of the intricate planning and execution of multiple bank robberies, Ken Cooper used his charm and intelligence to prolong a career of crime until that inevitable one time when things didn’t go as planned.

The trigger for some of us which pulls our direction and consequent actions one way or the other can be a mere few words made about us by an anonymous soul or a specific comment pointed at us like a weapon. Ken Cooper recalls the memory of an experience in school, but I am also reminded from his experience of the singing group “The Carpenters” where young Karen Carpenter was pummeled by a comment written about her which referred to her as “chubby”. It sent her on a life-ending journey through anorexia. Ken Cooper’s remembrance sits at the baseline of his eventual self-image and conduct, concluding his journey with a life-threatening gunshot wound and a trip to the hellhole known as The Rock prison.

Written creatively and with ample examples of the sub-human and demonic existence of some prisons and their prisoners, Ken’s story takes the reader with him through his robbery preparations and his torturous fears at the hands of other jailed men who have become nothing more than the personifications of evil in human forms.

The beauty of this memoir relies on the abilities of a loving Jesus to invade and permeate the filthiest of environments and provide relief, redemption, repair, and residence within the vile community of some prisons.

Not for the faint-hearted, this memoir is exactly as it should be: real, offensive, harsh, and sublime with the interference and infusion of the Holy Spirit’s guidance and God’s divine hand of protection. If the reader has any doubt as to the love afforded to the “least of these” by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, he will turn the last page of Held Hostage with a renewed faith in the power of true salvation.

Most of you know I rarely read non-fiction, but I don’t regret a moment of meeting Ken Cooper in his honest memoir Held Hostage, A Serial Bank Robber’s Road to Redemption.

Father, you know the road Ken took to get where you have him today, to be able to share his resurrected beauty from ashes, to qualify him for a worthwhile and important ministry. Please continue to bless him and his family in all of their endeavors to bring you to those who suffer from all kinds of trials and challenges. Please continue to show him favor as he works in the trenches to serve you. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.