The secret of the origins of christianity itself.

fun read, chasing down Jesus' gospel through london, italy and middle east. all begins with an earthquake at mt vesuvius. ( )

The Last Gospel, another cash-cow upon the crime/religion genre sets new benchmarks in implausibility. The third entry in the series, akin to Cussler's Dirk Pitt series, sees a team of adventurers embark on another standalone quest, this time of a religious nature. The narrative is simple with rather two-dimensional characters, up against a poorly executed plot and 'enemy'. There's the required sprinkling of fact, both in terms of modern science and religious history. Overall though, the number of discoveries that the plot includes is simply too inconceivable, and it feels like the story has been thrown together rather than skilfully composed. ( )

Interesting story - a search for a papyrus containing the words of Jesus, written by Jesus. The story moves from Sicily to Naples/Mt. Vesuvius/Herculaneum/Pompeii to London to Rome. The Vatican wants to find and destroy the papyrus and a secret faction within the Vatican is willing to kill anyone who shows any interest at all in this document, considered to be heresy by the Roman Church. Add in Boudica and the emperor Claudius and the Sybills and the Apostle Paul and Pliny (the elder and the younger).

(And try not to be distracted by the Doctor saying, "We're in Pompeii, and it's Volcano Day" or the Pyrovile who had taken over the current Sybill's body, or of Captain Jack's remark about exuberant Roman solders . . .)

The biggest problem with this book is that it's all talk. There's a lot of history that plays into the plot, history that your average fiction reader probably doesn't know. Instead of showing the history as flashbacks, or as chapters that alternate between the relevant timelines, the history is all presented in conversation between characters. The IMU team includes 2 archaeologists, 2 medieval document specialists, and a diver/engineer/technical guru named Costas who doesn't know anything about history. He's the convenient listener to these long, long, long, unending lectures.

Many scenes are underground or underwater. The descriptions of the tunnels, caves, tombs, crypts, wells, cesspools, streams, etc. were never adequate for me to picture the action. Many times, if character A was in the position described, character B couldn't possibly be in the position/location described for him. Or the characters would be diving through a tunnel described as barely large enough for one person, then the next paragraph has the characters swimming side by side.

And one last detail - Jack and Costas are following a puzzle devised by the Roman emperor Claudius. Every clue they read, Jack figures out what it means and what the next location is within a minute or two. Off they go, and they find exactly the tomb or relic they're looking for in exactly the place Jack expects to find it. Gosh - how unexciting. No doubts? No conflicts? No mistakes? Even Indiana Jones isn't that good.

And a nitpick: Mr. Gibbins, can your characters not TALK? All through the book, and particularly in the last third, almost all conversation is "murmured." Believe it or not, those attributions aren't just throw-away words that readers ignore. When you overuse a particular attribution, you actually interrupt the reader's concentration. If an entire conversation is held in whispers or in very quiet voices, use descriptions to set the scene instead of using the word "murmured" in 3 of ever 5 speech attributions. Believe me, it's more effective and less annoying.

Bottom line - interesting idea, poor execution. This book is the 3rd in a series, and it wasn't compelling enough or well-written enough to convince me to look for the first 2 books. ( )

Too much stilted "lecturing" between characters. ( )