A review: A New Identity, A New Heart

The many personalities of Randy Singer emerge in his latest legal thriller "False Witness."

According to his online biography, Singer believes that holding three or more jobs at the same time guarantees that even if two bosses show him the door on the same day, he'll still be able to avoid the unemployment lines.

A critically acclaimed author, Singer also is a veteran trial lawyer, a ministry leader and a preacher.

Each of his professional identities emerge in the telling of a story about a young couple forced into the federal witness protection program after running afoul of the Manchurian Triad -- the Chinese mafia.

Entrusted with a mathematical miracle that would threaten Internet security around the world if it fell into the wrong hands, the couple tries to honor the final request of an Indian professor who is willing to trade his freedom, even his life, to secure the release of the young wife held hostage and tortured by the Manchurian Triad.

The professor leaves the coded algorithm with the husband -- a bail bondsman who has broken nearly every law imaginable to take the professor into custody -- promising him that the key to the code would be provided within the year. When no key is forthcoming, the couple travels to Mangalore, India, where they witness first hand the plight of the Dalit, formerly referred to as the "untouchables" of India. The professor had exacted a solemn oath that when the algorithm was sold, that 90 percent of the proceeds would be dedicated to help educate the children, rescuing them from bondage. They also discover that the man with the key, the professor's pastor, had died. Confiding in the new pastor, the couple accepts the dead pastor's Bible, certain that it contains the key, somewhere in the innumerable margin notations, if only they can decode it.

After surviving for nearly four years in the witness protection program the couple is unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight, coming immediately to the attention of Xu, the mafia henchman they had thwarted. What follows is a roller coaster ride through the halls of justice, a crash course in ethics for a group of law students and a close examination of the witness protection program, its strengths and its inherent weaknesses.

Throughout the fast-paced thriller, favorably compared to the work of John Grisham by Publisher's Weekly, Singer also demonstrates through his characters the dark pathways trod in the hearts of men unguided and unguarded by God and how God, and God alone, can affect a change of heart.

The inspiration for False Witness came at the surprising conclusion of a good friend's funeral where Singer delivered the eulogy, extolling the length, breadth and depth of generosity that defined David O'Malley.

David's pastor then took the pulpit and spoke about a scoundrel by the name of Thomas Kelly, who turned on everyone he knew, even his cohorts in organized crime, which ultimately landed him in the witness protection program.

It wasn't the witness protection program that changed the man, the pastor explained. They could only change his name, his printed past and provide a new way to live.

Singer has never forgotten the pastor's closing words. "The government can give you a new identity. But only Christ can change your life."

According to Singer's publisher, Tyndale House Publishers, all proceeds from the sale of the book are donated to the Dalit Freedom Network.

For more information, go online to www.randysinger.net or www.dalitnetwork.org

False Witness, ISBN: 978-1-4143-35698 is available online and can be ordered at New Life Christian Bookstore, 212 Norris Ave., McCook.