A strange and eerie debut novel.   As the title suggests, it is the story of a Christian cult heading towards acts of violence.  It is told in short segments narrated mostly by the three main characters-John Leal, the leader of the cult, Phoebe, a follower, and Will, who rejects Leal’s teachings and is in love with Phoebe.

The Incendiaries takes a long time to unfold,and, for me, each character’s back story got in the way of the plot’s progress.  Also, parts of the novel were a bit confusing, and some paragraphs I had to reread two or three times.