Review: Adequate but Uninspired
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 6, 2013
This is an adequate, but not special, entry into the Dan Brown genre of vaguely religious suspense/thriller stories involving elaborate clues to some artifact that may or may not prove some doctrinal point. The story does clip along helped by the omni-competent spy and the brainy and beautiful scientist. As usual, during the course of the book, the heroes manage to destroy priceless artifacts, desecrate historically important archeological sites, and leave a wake of corpses in their path. There are the usual religious fanatics planning terrorist attacks and the timeclock of impending doom. The problem is that the reader winds up somewhat uninvolved with any of the characters who neither grow nor change during the book.I would be remiss not to note two points that can be very irritating. First, how is it that all these ancient traps are still working flawlessly after centuries? Is there some mystery maintenance crew? How does sand or rust or whatever not have any effect? Second, who leaves a trail of clues so convoluted that realistically, there is no chance that anyone could follow it to the end? What was the point? And for whom were these clues left? As long as one doesn't mind these types of implausibility, this book is not a bad entry into this fairly crowded niche.