Entropy Gate

How much violence is too much violence in a Christian novel?

I am currently reading Ted Dekker’s novel blink. In the third chapter, he dedicates more than a page to describe a muslim father drowning his teenage daughter because she would not have relations with her husband. It was shocking and painful to read. But was it over the top? I’m not sure. Book two of the Entropy Gate series has its fair share of violence. However, the more intense scenes (nothing so horrifying as a father drowning his daughter in the family pool…I mean, come on, the people who ‘bite the bullet’ in BEYOND are THE BAD GUYS FOR CRYIN’ OUT LOUD!!!) are all carried out off camera as it were. When Silla ‘relieves’ some of the baddies who were tortured by even worse baddies (and she does it with a knife) I wrote it as, “Michael watched in horror as Silla ended their pain”…or some such thing. So, why am I moaning? Because some of the same people (some even related to me) who carped about the violence in my story have praised Dekker’s work.