First Sam Bourne book I have read, though I have read his non fiction political books.

The plot concerns a new reporter to the New York Times, he gets a break on a story and from that point his life unravels. His wife is kidnapped, and he is drawn into a plot that is a blend of Jewish mysticism and fundamental religious beliefs. A number of people around the world have been eliminated and he is desperately.turing to get his wife back and stay one step ahead of those tracking him.

He has been compared to Dan Brown, but this is not totally fair, as it is a lot better written. I thought that the plot was ok, nut slightly unbelievable at the end. I just found that the dialogue was a little wooden between the characters.

Good page turner. Ideal for a holiday read. ( )

Not really about righteous men but quite an interesting look into life. ( )

This is an enjoyable fast paced thriller.
The main character is Will Monroe a journalist for the New York Times.
He investigates the death of a local pimp. He digs deeper to get a good story and accidently uncovers a bizarre Jewish cult and also links between the pimps death and a white racist in Seattle.
His Wife Beth is held hostage by the Jewish cult.
More bizarre deaths occur Will gets his old girlfriend TC to help as he keeps getting strange clues sent to him via text.
Eventually all is revealed there is another cult this time a Christian one Wills Dad is the leader. Will has to kill him to save the life of his unborn child, ( )

The back cover of this book contains a review extract from Esquire claiming that The Righteous Men is even more readable than Dan Brown. This is not exactly the highest of hurdles and, even though Bourne -- in reality UK columnist Jonathan Freedland -- manages to clear it, his trailing foot sets the crossbar aquiver.

Newbie New York Times journo Will Monroe seeks to impress his bosses, and does so as he unearths the stories behind two seemingly unrelated murders on opposite sides of the country, discovering that both victims, one a pimp and the other a redneck survivalist, had secretly perpetrated acts of extraordinary kindness: they were "righteous men". Promptly Will's wife Beth is abducted. With the help of an old hacker friend and Beth's predecessor, the sexy TC, Will discovers Beth's been taken by a Brooklyn cult of Ultraorthodox Jews. But are they the bad guys? Or are they trying to save the world? -- because there's a tradition that at any one time there are 36 righteous men in the world, and if someone should knock 'em all off it'll be The End. And someone is indeed doing the requisite knocking off . . .

There's lots of Kabbalistic thrashing around, successions of pointlessly puerile riddles in the Dan Brown vein for Will and TC to solve, plenty of items for Thog's Masterclass, wooden characterization, dire visualization (how do you tell, at a distance and in dim street lighting, that someone has blue eyes?) and much more. In a couple of instances there are silly little continuity errors, as if the printed text was assembled from several different drafts and no one troubled to check the joins. Every now and then there's a nice touch, as when Will, despite his anxiety over Beth, has guilty little flashbacks to some of the things he and TC used to get up to, back in the day; but most of this is pretty drab.
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I'd have given this 4.5 stars if I'd had the option! A page-turner, with depth, interest, riddles, and unexpected twists. Highly recommended. ( )