Terrifically lively characterizations and the author’s passion for her subject make this one stand out.
An exuberant, deeply involved thriller woven around the history of the Shroud of Turin.
After yet another fire in Turin Cathedral, Marco Valoni, chief of the Italian Art Crimes Department, decides there is something suspicious going on in the great church that houses the world-renowned Shroud. There have been too many suspicious blazes over the past half-century, and in each case the arsonists responsible have been discovered with their tongues cut out. The most recent suspect is still in jail, refusing to cooperate. Valoni decides to track down the heads of scientific groups that have visited the shroud over the last decades. He also enlists the talented men and women in his agency to come up with some leads. Art expert Sofia Galloni urges her boss to release the tongueless suspect in hopes that he will lead them to his confederates. Alternating with Valoni’s crime investigation, which widens to include the very rich heads of world companies, is a Biblical history of the shroud itself. In these portions, King Abgar of Edessa sends his childhood friend Josar as an emissary to Jerusalem. Josar’s mission is to convince the legendary Jesus of Nazarus to come to Edessa, heal the king of leprosy and share his kingdom. Instead, Josar becomes a disciple and later returns to Edessa with Jesus’ shroud. Before Agbar’s non-Christian heir can torture him to reveal the shroud’s hidden location, Josar removes his own tongue. This is just the beginning of a wildly complicated history, exhaustively delineated by the author, that ultimately lands the shroud with the Templars, whose modern representatives want it back. Spanish journalist Navarro distinguishes her fiction debut from routine suspense fodder by ending this convoluted tale with realistic ambiguity rather than wrapping up all the loose ends.
Terrifically lively characterizations and the author’s passion for her subject make this one stand out.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2007
ISBN: 0-385-33962-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
The jaws are those of a shark which makes quick work of a pretty young woman on the Long Island shore (Amity) where the disaster is kept quiet in the (financial) interest of the town's summer rentals. This is no longer possible after the next victim—a youngster—and police chief Brody is wrongly blamed for not closing the beaches sconer. He has other troubles — namely a restless young wife who remembers better days playing country club tennis and she is not immune to a visiting ichthyologist, the only one fascinated by the local shark. The finale entails some ugly, lashing action against the big one that's been getting away and all of it is designed to jolt that maneating masculine readership who probably won't notice that it ""should of"" been better written.
Pub Date: Jan. 18, 1973
ISBN: 978-0-345-54414-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1973
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days...
In 1876, professor Edward Cope takes a group of students to the unforgiving American West to hunt for dinosaur fossils, and they make a tremendous discovery.
William Jason Tertullius Johnson, son of a shipbuilder and beneficiary of his father’s largess, isn’t doing very well at Yale when he makes a bet with his archrival (because every young man has one): accompany “the bone professor” Othniel Marsh to the West to dig for dinosaur fossils or pony up $1,000, but Marsh will only let Johnson join if he has a skill they can use. They need a photographer, so Johnson throws himself into the grueling task of learning photography, eventually becoming proficient. When Marsh and the team leave without him, he hitches a ride with another celebrated paleontologist, Marsh’s bitter rival, Edward Cope. Despite warnings about Indian activity, into the Judith badlands they go. It’s a harrowing trip: they weather everything from stampeding buffalo to back-breaking work, but it proves to be worth it after they discover the teeth of what looks to be a giant dinosaur, and it could be the discovery of the century if they can only get them back home safely. When the team gets separated while transporting the bones, Johnson finds himself in Deadwood and must find a way to get the bones home—and stay alive doing it. The manuscript for this novel was discovered in Crichton’s (Pirate Latitudes, 2009, etc.) archives by his wife, Sherri, and predates Jurassic Park (1990), but if readers are looking for the same experience, they may be disappointed: it’s strictly formulaic stuff. Famous folk like the Earp brothers make appearances, and Cope and Marsh, and the feud between them, were very real, although Johnson is the author’s own creation. Crichton takes a sympathetic view of American Indians and their plight, and his appreciation of the American West, and its harsh beauty, is obvious.
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days of American paleontology.Pub Date: May 23, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-247335-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
