This is a book I almost gave up on. I thought the sense of mysticism might be greater than it was. It is definitely a thriller, in which the hidden ones (Lamed Vovniks) are being killed by the secet sect called the Gnoseos. The result will be the destruction of the world. Almost implausible fight scenes help save everything. ( )

Enjoyed this book very much. Very fast read. I had put it down for some time and was able to get right back into it. ( )

This is what happens when two paperback writers know enough about a subject to pirate its terminology but not enough to respect the scholars who have studied it. Or they mistakenly assumed that no one knew anything about Gnosticism. Mix that up with Jewish Mysticism, jewels from Aaron's breastplate (that would be Moses' brother Aaron) and long-winded passages about the "rarified light" of the Israeli landscape - and stir.

Here we start out with the premise that "Gnostics" (which is such a broad, catch-all designation even now that the reader is never told which brand of Gnosticism these two have decided to slander - sounds like the Cathars) hate the evil world so much, they've decided to destroy it, by murdering all of the unsuspecting innocent people who have the same names as those written down in Adam and Eve's "Book of Names".

Apparently, neither Gregory or Tintori bothered to perform a random check to see just how many people in the world have the same name. In this story, simply Googling "Fred Smith" will get you to the right victim.

In the real world, if all 100,000 "Fred Smith's" wound up murdered in the same time period, (a) you'd think someone would notice it by merely eyeballing the local obituaries, (b) it would take a ridiculously long period of time to finish the job, and besides, (c) maybe the right "Fred Smith" died in 1888!

They also appear to have adopted without question the conservative view that gnostics, considered heretics in the Middle Ages, were therefore evil and capable of devising such a plot - despite all genuine scholarship to the contrary.

Deux ex machina moment: how "Adam and Eve" knew that the idea of someone having a first AND last name wouldn't come about until well after the first millennium (their explanation: God did) - or where Adam and Eve got the pen and paper in the first place. The complete absence of simple logic behind the story will end up driving you bug-eyed.

Last gripe: the New York Times really needs to re-think their "Best Sellers List".

I didn't like this book. Very clunky language and characterization. A DaVinci Code wannabee.

http://tickettoanywhere.blogspot.com/... ( )