Christine Temetri has become, whether she likes it or not, Apocalypse Lass. A writer for the Christian journal The Banner, it has been her job to cover the end of the world and report back to her boss Harry Giddings, The Banner's publisher (who, incidentally, believes that it is his destiny to herald the real Apocalypse). Unfortunately, Christine has been at it for so long and covered so many ends of the world -- all of which have fizzled out just at the predicted moment -- that she just wants out. Until Giddings sends her to Israel, and a dying general entrusts her with a silver attaché case and tells her to take it to Mercury. Suddenly Christine finds herself involved in the real, actual, end-of-days Apocalypse, complete with angels, heavenly bureaucracies, visits to Hell and the most obnoxious Antichrist ever.

Now it's up to Christine to somehow convince the angel Mercury, who has decided to sit this one out, to step up and save the world.

In Mercury Falls, Robert Kroese takes pokes at pretty much everything from highly successful authors of children's novels upon which movies are based to that middle-aged guy who lives in his mother's basement and spends all his time playing video games to the petty bureaucrats who insist on following the rules, especially in the face of the end of days.

You don't find very many funny novels about the end of the world. Fortunately, Mercury Falls is a funny novel about the end of the world. While it has few laugh-out-loud moments, it's written with a wry humor that can often be far more amusing in the end than those drink-out-the-nose moments. Which are actually fairly uncomfortable, if you think about it.