Michael Byrnes (1)

It has all the elements of the Da Vinci Code. Conspiracy, Roman Catholic Church, clunky exposition and obvious clues. There's a raid on Temple Mount and a cache of Ossuaries found, there appears to be one missing. Detectives work on it.

In the Vatican, American Scientist Charlotte Hennesey and Italian Anthropologist Giovanni Bersei are summoned and vowed to secrecy about a mysterious stone box. Which the open and find inside bones. The bones of a crucified man.

Now if you've read any of this show more stuff you'd know where this is going. Charlotte is supposed to have multiple myeloma. Is supposed to be taking Chemotherapy drugs. Now I know from experience that chemo isn't easy, is quite tough on your stomach and if they tell you not to take alcohol it's not for gallery. She's also supposed to have had a catholic education but the gaps of difference between my catholic education ahd hers are just amazing. They also failed to convince me that they were real scientists. Among other things, if you found an ancient parchment or velum scroll and were being hired by the Vatican Library (not to look into the scroll but the scroll was found in the ossuary) you wouldn't wonder what to do with the scroll but would call the librarian right there and then (unless it was past their working hours, but even still, most librarians would be very happy to be dragged out of bed to examine a document that looks like it's early Christian, trust me)

And I don't care how much you need the info, your phone has a camera, don't photocopy the ancient document. At the worst you should have a digital camera of some sort, use it.

Oh and the author failed their research test: p 130 "Straight out of the seminary, Donovan had joined Dublin's Christchurch Cathedral as a resident priest." He's supposed to be a Roman Catholic Priest. If you google it, even without going through to the link (http://cccdub.ie/) you will see, up front and center "Church of Ireland". Why yes, there are non-Roman Catholics in Ireland, a little fact-checking goes an awful long way.

We're not even going near the ending that seriously came at me and made me wince.

Still it did drag me along (yes occasionally kicking and screaming) almost more for the what the hells is he going to do next to the characters. It had the potential to be a good read but it didn't make it. If you liked the Da Vinci Code you may like this but if you hated it this isn't much better. show less

This is a retelling of the story of the death of Jesus, what happened to his bones, the Ark of The Covenant and 2000 year old prophecies which brings it all together in modern Jerusalem. Remembering that this is fiction of course this is not a bad read right up to the end. The ending was very disappointing and took the conventional path that big events don't actually happen and evil doers are always thwarted at the end, especially when it comes to world changing events. But in this case the show more evil doers weren't really all that evil, just misguided and side tracked. And then days later it was as if nothing had happened.

Apart from the ending I enjoyed this. show less

This was an excellent novel, though it could have been better. I am the kind of person who likes a graphic description of the gradual progress of the plague. Unfortunately, this really doesn't concentrate on the plague very much. It is more about the politics of crating a new armageddon. Not what I expected, but still a good read.

There is a special circle of Hell so terrible Dante did not dare write about it, and it is reserved especially for Dan Brown and all the scribblers who have climbed onto the Brown bandwagon.

Discerning readers know if ‘Dan Brown’ or ‘Da Vinci Code’ is mentioned anywhere on the book or in anything promoting the book – possible exceptions might be ‘If you like Dan brown, you’ll hate this – don’t bother reading it.

Sacred Blood is actually less offensive than most as well as show more being slightly better written: although it is a follow up to Sacred Bones, published a few years ago, the back story is easy to pick up and the book works as a stand alone.

A couple of years ago a sarcophagus containing a skeleton was found in a previously undiscovered tomb under Temple Mount: before the bones could be properly examined, they were seized in a ruthless and daring raid in which many were killed.

Could these have been the bones of Jesus Christ? The indications were all there but the public would never know the truth thanks to the ungodly machinations of an ancient evil, an all-powerful international gang of immoral killers, one of the richest, most corrupt and oldest institutions on Earth – the Catholic Church.

Like all the really big-shot baddies, the Catholics have a luxurious and heavily fortified hangout – theirs is in the heart of Rome and called Vatican City: it was to this sinister and secretive enclave that the stolen bones were delivered…

Charlotte Hennessey, an American scientist brought into the Vatican to examine the bones, is miraculously cured of cancer when she in injected with their DNA: obviously, this was no ordinary skeleton. But now a few years have passed and the Evil Empire is quiet and Temple Mount has licked its wounds.

Husky Israeli archaeologist Amit Mizrachi makes a bewildering discovery at Qumran and asks his friend Julie LeRoux, a renowned French archaeologist, to help him decipher it but before long they are running for their lives and the Qumran site has been destroyed.

Then there is Aaron Cohen, an American-born ultra-Orthodox Jew who returned to Israel to raise a family and lead a covert sect called The Sons of Light: on the other hand we have the Muslim rulers of Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock, hard-line fundamentalists, hell-bent on the rewards they will garner in Paradise for mass slaughter of the unsuspecting in cold blood.

And let’s not forget the Catholic Church and the treachery existing deep in the heart of the Holy See. A rollicking read with plenty of thrills, spills and romance, involving everything from the sacred gift of healing to the Arc of the Covenant: this is Dan brown lite, a book that does not take itself too seriously, and is all the better for it. show less