There's no doubt that a hunger burns in the American reading masses for put-the-fear-of-God-into-you, Rapture-related, on-the-brink-of-the-Apocalypse fiction. The Remnant, the tenth installation in Tim LaHaye & Jerry B. Jenkins' blockbuster fundamentalist Christian "Left Behind" series, was the Number Three hottest selling item on bn.com just two days after its release. A week and a half earlier, the series was featured on the cover and inside Time magazine in conjunction with a piece on the cultural fascination with the End Times.

That's exactly the vein E. Forrest Hein taps in his first novel, The Ruach Project, if to somewhat less effect than LaHaye and Jenkins.  Whatever Hein's debut might lack, however, it's certainly not startling plot developments. It begins with a bang - or, more precisely, the sound of a rushing wind. Heard 'round the world, the sound's source is a mystery to all, but it is definitely the harbinger of disaster in late January of 2008. Millions of people, mostly children younger than eight years old, disappear - literally - without a trace. It's an occurrence that almost overshadows the devastating earthquakes and firestorms leaving northern California an unsalvageable wasteland, or the incredible turn of events halfway across the globe, where the Chinese army has taken over a neighboring parcel of the former Soviet Union.