Samaritan are a hacktivist group that also get physically involved in their attacks. Their targets: Christian megachurches and their hypocritical pastors. While successfully “liberating” these megachurches’ funds, diverting them to charities instead of lining the pastors’ pockets, the FBI are closing in on Samaritan - how long can the group stay ahead of their hunters?
Matt Hawkins and Rahsan Ekedal’s The Tithe is essentially a heist series, or at least this first volume is, and it does that fairly well. The first couple heists are a lot of fun and who doesn’t like seeing hypocrites punished, particularly megachurch pastors who are more often than not extremely corrupt?
But the rest of the story isn’t as exciting as the heists. The FBI agents on the case are fairly archetypical, while Samaritan themselves prove less than interesting. Sam, the leader, is quite bland while her three partners are very unconvincing as to their overall value to the group. I mean, why would you hire two junkies to pull off these complex raids AND outwit the FBI? And the third guy is the usual tough guy character trying (unsuccessfully) to get into Sam’s pants.
The Tithe becomes your run-of-the-mill cat and mouse story and not a very compelling one either. Ekedal’s art is very plain though I liked Mike Spicer’s colours and the series covers have been exemplary. Hawkins’ characters though are dull, their dialogue and discussions on faith are dreary and predictable, and, while it started strongly, The Tithe ended up as a tedious action story wishing it were a thriller, and failing. It’s not a great first volume and I doubt I’ll be coming back for the second.
The Tithe, Volume 1
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