An earnest, if sometimes-plodding, venture into The Da Vinci Code territory.
In Baker’s debut thriller, mysterious relics from the age of Alexander the Great link an ancient mystery with a modern-day discovery.
Fans of Dan Brown and Steve Berry will feel right at home with this tale, in which an enigmatic object from the distant past becomes the center of contemporary intrigue. The story opens in 21st-century New York City, where a hapless part-time museum assistant named Shamar is brutally accosted by a trio of men intent on stealing the museum’s newest acquisition: a crate containing a mysterious object that only someone wearing a special protective robe can handle. After the men leave with the crate, Shamar, still aching from the beating they gave him, wraps himself in the robe left behind—and suddenly finds himself transported to fourth-century Alexandria, Egypt. At its famous library, the intelligent, kind-hearted librarian Theon tends to the mysterious, newly arrived stranger. Theon notices something sewn into the lining of Shamar’s clothing—a case containing a small, beautiful, lotus-shaped crystal and a parchment written in Aramaic. The parchment hints of the existence of a scroll containing powerful revelations, perhaps hidden somewhere in the great library itself. Theon is quick to understand the significance of what he’s dealing with: “Who desires its contents?” he wonders. “Clergy will certainly want it; perhaps even kings, queens, or a leader of nations, but what else makes it so sought after!” It turns out that one person who desires the scroll is a ruthless 21st-century man named Patrick, who’ll stop at nothing to get it. The narrative follows the parallel adventures of Theon and Shamar in the past and Patrick and his right-hand man Gabriel in the present, and Baker skillfully and effectively uses each plotline to heighten the tension of the other. This is fortunate, as the novel has some flaws: The pacing is sometimes lethargic, the many action sequences seem static, and the dialogue can be wooden. However, Baker reveals the clues that lead to Alexander’s treasure with just enough precision to offset these drawbacks, and an enjoyable subplot involving Shamar’s spirited girlfriend, Sophia, helps enliven the book’s second half, which leads to a series of climactic surprises.
An earnest, if sometimes-plodding, venture into The Da Vinci Code territory.Pub Date: April 17, 2014
ISBN: 978-1494434304
Page Count: 164
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
In Clavell's last whopper, Tai-pan, the hero became tai-pan (supreme ruler) of Hong Kong following England's victory in the first Opium War. Clavell's new hero, John Blackthorne, a giant Englishman, arrives in 17th century Japan in search of riches and becomes the right arm of the warlord Toranaga who is even more powerful than the Emperor. Superhumanly self-confident (and so sexually overendowed that the ladies who bathe him can die content at having seen the world's most sublime member), Blackthorne attempts to break Portugal's hold on Japan and encourage trade with Elizabeth I's merchants. He is a barbarian not only to the Japanese but also to Portuguese Catholics, who want him dispatched to a non-papist hell. The novel begins on a note of maelstrom-and-tempest ("'Piss on you, storm!' Blackthorne raged. 'Get your dung-eating hands off my ship!'") and teems for about 900 pages of relentless lopped heads, severed torsos, assassins, intrigue, war, tragic love, over-refined sex, excrement, torture, high honor, ritual suicide, hot baths and breathless haikus. As in Tai-pan, the carefully researched material on feudal Oriental money matters seems to he Clavell's real interest, along with the megalomania of personal and political power. After Blackthorne has saved Toranaga's life three times, he is elevated to samurai status, given a fief and made a chief defender of the empire. Meanwhile, his highborn Japanese love (a Catholic convert and adulteress) teaches him "inner harmony" as he grows ever more Eastern. With Toranaga as shogun (military dictator), the book ends with the open possibility of a forthcoming sequel. Engrossing, predictable and surely sellable.
Pub Date: June 23, 1975
ISBN: 0385343248
Page Count: 998
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1975
BOOK TO SCREEN
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