Vincent Zandri

I wanted something like Indiana Jones, but this is set in modern times and it felt more in line with The Da Vinci Code (although much faster/less detailed). The chapters are very short and it's told in first person, hardboiled style, with a lot of action. The narrator is a detective/archeologist kind of character.

The story is fast and entertaining, but it suffered from the somewhat nonsensical plot (why do the characters act like it would make any sense for the Vatican, if they wanted to hide some relic, to bury it somewhere in Egypt and leave clues around, instead of just hiding it safely in the Vatican itself?). You can also see it's written very hastily, without too much revision (sometimes words were used in a wrong way).

It was a quick, pulpy read, and I finished it, but I did not really love it.… (meer)

For me, the best way to get through unpolished writing is to take it in small chunks. For example, many of what Zandri calls "chapters" are actually "scenes," and I read two or three of these at a time. Thus, it took me a couple of weeks to get through the book.

Having finished the work, I feel that Zandri cheated his reader's by not going into greater detail about electroshock therapy. He gave hints, here or there, about Reece not being able to write The Damned, and a few other oblique references, and maybe that technique is part of the genre--don't give too much away.

Zandri took a similar approach with Lisa and David's "affair," though Reece's speculations here did have a foreshadowing aspect to them.

Having said that, I found the end to be a gratuitous--"I gotcha, reader! I bet you didn't expect that!"

I did find it interesting that Lisa had eye surgery, making her physically (as well as symbolically?) blind. Frankie, the dog, has more character depth than does Lisa. Blood, too, is monolithic--a type inserted to serve a function (how does it come to pass that, just in time, Blood makes it from inner city Albany to the Reynolds' mansion. As readers, we deserve to know a little more about Blood.

Other characters, too, remain undeveloped, though Detective Miller's notion the books are like footprints might be one of the better lines in the novel.

I got this as a freebie from Amazon. There are so many other choices that I'm not likely to add Zandri to my reading list--Greg Iles, David Lindsey, David Baldacci, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and others.… (meer)