Rating: 
Summary: An Intercessor's Plea
Review: * Satan is roaming the earth, seeking whom he may devour(1Peter 5:8). Many souls are ripe for his tormenting in a socieity where a man's opinion is his God (2TIM 4:3-4) and secular humanism runs rampant.This book sheds light on many of the enemy's tactics.It also empowers the believer in Christ with true knowledge and effective weapons (Ephesians 6:10-17 Remember the Word, the blood of Jesus, the name of Jesus, and the prayers of the saints).
* Martin is a former professor at the Vatian's Pontifical Biblical Institute.He researched and interviewed 5 exorcists and 5 cases of possession. He tells the story of each priest's calling and the circumstances leading to each possession. His prose will captivate you and you'll invite him back for more. I've read this book several times and distributed numerous copies as gifts.
* Martin is Catholic and I'm a Protestant Assemblies of God believer. This book breaks the DEMONINATION BARRIERS.Jesus is the vine(John 15).Who loves Jesus? John 14:21 states," Whoever has my commands and obeys them, He is the one who loves me....."
* Martin explores the spiritual fight that occurs in exorcism (aka deliverance) and details the battle for the soul.The will of the possessed, the strength of the priest's faith, and the crafty tactics of the devil's hordes all play a part in 5 climatic victory testimonies for Jesus....
Rating: 
Summary: a total fraud
Review: To give him his due the great clerical con man Malachi Martin is able to unite a linguistic flare, an Irishman's storytelling ability and a scholar's mind to create quite a fascinating work. Martin was an opportunist who preyed on various societal forces to make a quick buck. With the great commercial success of the film "the exorcist" Malachi jumped on the bandwagon and penned this bestseller. None of the stories can be varified at all, and Martin has made a name for himself in literary and Church circles for spreading lies and calumny. The reality of exorcism is not in question, but Martin is not the man from whom to get the story. I reccomend instead the excellent book on the subject by Gabriel Amorth.
Rating:
Summary: Forget The Exorcist
Review: I read this in high school, 18 years ago. To this day I get nightmares from Martin's accounts. After reading Hostage to the Devil, I laughed all the way through The Exorcist. During college, I studied English Lit, and Philosophy. At home, I got a steady dose of Catholic Theology from my parents who were steeped in Catholic Mysticsm, as well as Celtic lore from my father's side. I came into re-reading Martin with a different perspective than I had as a teenager, but was no less moved by the accounts. Whether you believe in Demonic Possession, which I do not, is somewhat irrelevant in my opinion. What Martin is dealing with is something that The Church as been wrestling with for 2000 years: The nature of true evil, and how it manifests itself. I had a long discussion once with a Jesuit priest and scholar (who had experience in exorcisms) on the nature of exorcisms, and he often quoted Hostage to the Devil, but always qualified the book as "more of an examination of evil than giving the Devil his bona fides". Hostage to the Devil opened my eyes to thinking about the world in quite different ways 18 years ago, and it still resonates today as a book that transformed my Altar Boy theology into an adult's questioning of metaphysics. Of course, Kafka, and Dostoevsky did the same thing. The difference is that their novels were fictional. What Malachi Martin is writing about is ostensibly not. I too felt the accounts as dubious because of the lack of support, yet each time I read the book the questions that were raised dealt more with the nature of evil than the lack of journalistic acumen. Interestingly, The Exorcist was based on the actual diaries of a priest who took part in the exorcism of a young boy. I guess the difference between Martin and The Exorcist is that reading the stories is far more chilling than seeing Linda Blair float above a bed in a wealthy Georgetown townhouse. Hostage to the Devil ultimately succeeds in defining evil vis-a-vis demonic possession. Malachi Martin's accounts were chilling, disturbing, and potent. For anyone interested in demonic possession, or the nature of evil, this is a very important work.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is good for entertainment purposes only
Review: First off, I do beleive that demonic possession can occur, has occured & will continue to occur. In reading this book, however, I had to stop and keep wondering how much of this was real. The author acknowledges that the publisher had no way of checking his claims due to his promise of annomimity for the persons involved. He also claims to have used interviews and transcripts from actual recordings of exorcisms, but frequently I felt that he was injecting his own veiw or taking artistic license with the subject matter. The book was interesting and sometimes engrossing, but was not as scary as some other reviewers had made it out to be.
Rating:
Summary: A dark, horrid and disturbing peek into the marrow of evil.
Review: As it reads in chapter twelve-43 through 45-in the Book of St. Matthew: "When the spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findth it empty, swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation." Exorcism seems like such an archaic ritual in today's au courant times, a liturgy that is often scoffed at by atheists and the medical intelligentsia as a 'colorful' ceremony that is nothing more than Catholicism at its lordliest apex. If it was a formality that served no purpose for Martin Luthar and the Protestant branch of Christianity, how could it help the rest of humankind? One half embraced the Roman rite while the other completely dismissed it, creating, ironically, a kind of purgatory for the ritual itself. This is how one facet of Protestantism differs from Catholicism; the former believes that faith alone can surmount the impediments that inflict humanity. The latter dictates that it takes more than faith alone, for the power of man, of woman, is not as mighty as we like to believe. Faith is the sword with which to combat the ills that curse and haunt us. The shield and other armaments-baptism, the holy Eucharist, the Sacrament of Penance, exorcism-are the wells of fortitude that cover for man's ineptness and his inability to see and acknowledge it. Hostage to the Devil is an exhaustive and concentrated work of religious journalism, a book that offers to readers (via the five documented cases) an in-depth study of how possession comes about and explicitly showcases the loopholes and failures of psychiatric involvement. The case of the virgin and the girl-fixer-involving Black Mass, satanic formality and necrophilia-illustrate the point quite clearly. It must be understood that there are very defined and rigid guidelines that must be met before the rite can be approved by the bishop. Approval is not a willy-nilly procedure. It is slow, deliberate, contemplative and toilsome-a process that includes intensive psychiatric scrutiny-the latter a fact that many in the medical profession fail to admit when broached with the subject of possession and religious storm and stress. However stongly one hungers to quash science and psychiatry-as they are two fields that more often than not try to debunk any element of religiosity-their individual value to theology and doctrine is inestimable and must be acknowledged, as the research proffered to how the human mind operates has greatly streamlined for the church what battles it needs to fight and what battles it can leave to the medical experts. Even when the rite of exorcism is completed, the individuals involved are never fully the same; their souls are in intact, united with Christ, but physically they become depleted remnants of their former selves, endowed with a knowledge that was indeed very hard fought.
Rating: 
Summary: A bit wordy
Review: I have read many books in my time and I am very educated, however I did find this book to be a bit complicated to read, I was easly tempted to skip whole sections to get to the point. The author tends to be a bit wordy and long winded in his explantions. He tends to use allot of metophors which is not a bad thing, just not my style of reading. I also found that the book tends to be a bit laid back on the whole subject. Skiping perhaps how dangerious the whole occult world is. Exercisoms in gerneral are dangerious work, and tends not to come on as the author tends to protray it. If your looking for a real meat and potatos book on the subject I would add that "beware of the Night" is a much more realistic view of the whole matter.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book , BUT.............
Review: This was an Awesome book! I myself am a Faithful Catholic, Dedicated to the Papacy. Although this was a great book,
the Author Malachi Martin is not a Crediable author,if you
know his Real History in his Years as a Jesuit Priest.
Great book but not Crediable. I read this book in the
Begining and thought it was a Crediable Book, then i
started talking to my priest and he said i shouldnt
have read it but i kept on any way, then about 2 days latter
i lost the book, never found it. So i guess God doesnt want
you to read it. If you want a Good Crediable book on Excorisms
read (An Excorcits Tells His Story: By Fr. Amorth Gabriele).
Rating:
Summary: Worthy of Immediate Reading
Review: This is an excellent, well written book on demon possession and excorcism...and it is true! Anyone in doubt about the deity of Jesus Christ must read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful, absorbing, life transforming
Review: A courageous book by a gifted writer. I was profoundly changed by reading this book and hardly have the words to describe my respect for the author. As Father Martin says, people don't want to believe that evil exists. Life is simpler that way, living in ignorance. To acknowledge the existence of evil spirit creates a responsibility in us. To know is to be aware, to be aware means that we must act against evil when we see it. I have a renewed sense of responsibility from reading this book to be vigilant in my life, to examine my choices much more carefully, to take more care with my thoughts and words, and to live more fully my spiritual truth.
Rating:
Summary: Hoax
Review: Martin's boak is a sensationalistic hoax predicated on the fear inspired by Blatty and used to play off of contemporary America's need to "cleanse and absolve" themselves through various means of therapy. For better reading on Exorcisms and "deliverance", check out Michael Cuneo's "Amercian Exorcism", which documents Martin, Peck, et al's quest to tap into a need and feed the fear of a fundamentally ludicrous concept. This stuff is the opiate of the people, and it is time to get off the pipe, folks.
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