By Steve Berry
I first read the author’s "The Amber Room" which didn’t capture my interest all that much. It involved a modern search for artistic treasure stolen from Russia by Nazi Germany and secreted away.
His latest novel, "The Alexandria Link", although it has similar elements of historically-oriented speculation, is much more fast-moving and exciting in my opinion.
As a starting point, Berry tops Brown’s "DaVinci Code" (a very similar sort of fiction) by taking us two thousand years before the time of Jesus. His first thesis is that, through mistranslation and connivance, the scriptural covenant in which God grants Abraham and his progeny deed to the land once called Palestine has been erroneously recorded; the “promised land” is actually hundreds of miles away from present day Israel in the wastelands of Arabia. The second major plot element is that the proof of this can be found in the original documents of the Septuagint written in the “old Hebrew” language. The third thesis is that these documents, cached in the great library of Alexandria, still exist; a secret order of “guardians” has preserved much of the material from that destroyed institution for over a thousand years in a hidden repository in the mountains of Sinai.
Obvious severe instability in the Middle East and the world in general will result when and if the inconsistencies of our modern scripture are revealed. The Jews are not justified in holding the land of Israel, the “real” promised land is located in an extremely sacred area for Islam, the Christian adherence to the Old Testament will be shown as faulty, and world economic and political upheaval will inevitably occur.
The cast of characters in the novel is rich. We have at least two secret societies with ancient roots, a powerful cabal, interested only in profit, headed by just one of the book’s villains, Israeli and Arabian special assassin groups, an amazingly versatile killer-villain, amoral politicians in the highest ranks (including the U.S. president, the Attorney General, and the Vice President), and several good guy/gal types including the Bond-like protagonist, Malone.
The book jumps from setting to setting and character to character throughout, but, to the author’s credit, this is not irksome. I found myself eagerly following most of the plot journeys.
However, the ending is a bit too compacted and unrealistically structured for my taste. Have any of you noticed the same sort of thing in recent fiction – almost as if the writer is tired of the thing and wants to wrap it up as quickly as possible?
Review by Ken West
His latest novel, "The Alexandria Link", although it has similar elements of historically-oriented speculation, is much more fast-moving and exciting in my opinion.
As a starting point, Berry tops Brown’s "DaVinci Code" (a very similar sort of fiction) by taking us two thousand years before the time of Jesus. His first thesis is that, through mistranslation and connivance, the scriptural covenant in which God grants Abraham and his progeny deed to the land once called Palestine has been erroneously recorded; the “promised land” is actually hundreds of miles away from present day Israel in the wastelands of Arabia. The second major plot element is that the proof of this can be found in the original documents of the Septuagint written in the “old Hebrew” language. The third thesis is that these documents, cached in the great library of Alexandria, still exist; a secret order of “guardians” has preserved much of the material from that destroyed institution for over a thousand years in a hidden repository in the mountains of Sinai.
Obvious severe instability in the Middle East and the world in general will result when and if the inconsistencies of our modern scripture are revealed. The Jews are not justified in holding the land of Israel, the “real” promised land is located in an extremely sacred area for Islam, the Christian adherence to the Old Testament will be shown as faulty, and world economic and political upheaval will inevitably occur.
The cast of characters in the novel is rich. We have at least two secret societies with ancient roots, a powerful cabal, interested only in profit, headed by just one of the book’s villains, Israeli and Arabian special assassin groups, an amazingly versatile killer-villain, amoral politicians in the highest ranks (including the U.S. president, the Attorney General, and the Vice President), and several good guy/gal types including the Bond-like protagonist, Malone.
The book jumps from setting to setting and character to character throughout, but, to the author’s credit, this is not irksome. I found myself eagerly following most of the plot journeys.
However, the ending is a bit too compacted and unrealistically structured for my taste. Have any of you noticed the same sort of thing in recent fiction – almost as if the writer is tired of the thing and wants to wrap it up as quickly as possible?
Review by Ken West
2 comments:
I forgot to mention that one of the novel's high points is when the hero throws his highly irritating, intrusive ex-wife out of an airplane. Haven't you wanted to do that too with certain people?
Oh, yes!
Post a Comment