THE GENESIS CODE: For all of you who swear by The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, The Rule of Four or The Dante Club(well may be I am the only person going gaga over the last one… but lets not go into that.) here is a book I can guarantee would be one of the best reads ever. In addition, after reading the book if you find it anything else please do not throw brickbats…. They hurt really badly! Hi hi. :-)
THE AUTHOR: John Case is the pseudonym of Jim and Carolyn Hougan, husband and wife, both published authors in their own right. Jim Hougan is also an award-winning investigative journalist and broadcaster. They live in Afton, Virginia. (Thus, with greatest certainty let us presume it to be the work of Jim. However, that remains to be confirmed).
His other works are:
the horse man
the syndrome
And the latest is: Eighth Day.
His style of narration is at once pacy and gripping… he weaves in the plot with its background with a dexterity that comes only from years of making pen scratch over paper (ok ok…or typing incessantly at your keyboard).
THE BOOK:
THE PLOT:
The book begins in the where-on-earth-is-that Italian hill town of Montecastello di Peglia, a thousand feet above the Umbrian plane. In the town church Father Azetti(should we call it exile… well yes let us do so) was in a Vatican imposed exile for being too outspoken.
“Having lived in the town for less than a decade, Father Azetti was an outsider, and would remain so into the next millennium. As such, he was suspect, and being suspect, he was under constant surveillance….”
In such a setting, Father Azetti hears a confession, which baffles him completely. Leaves him scared and horror struck to his bones. Dr Baresi had confided in him not only a confession that could alter the course of the Christian Faith but also something that would even change the way people perceive God. Father Azetti thinks it his utmost duty to intimate the Vatican about it and so he does… but through an act of arrogant foolishness on the part of the Vatican the contents of the confession becomes known to a sect called the Umbra Domini.
“To the Vatican, Umbra Domini was a barely tolerable extremist group, a sort of Catholic Hezbollah, waiting to explode. For its part, Umbra Domini saw the Vatican for what it was, or what it seemed to be: an obstacle. Massive, senile, and there.”
Right after the leak of this information in Washington D C a woman and her child is murdered in the most brutal and bizarre manner by a man who barely seems to have any motive. Her brother Joe Lassiter, the head of a private detective firm cannot let the incident go without knowing… the why. How these crimes are related to the confession and how does Joe go about discovering on one of the most spine chilling revelations ever forms the basis of the plot. Read it and you will not regret it.
THE NARRATION, STYLING AND DETAIL:
The book scores well as far as narration is concerned. The rhythm of the book is maintained throughout. The author never looses focus from what his objectives are. There are no sub-plot to distract, no romantic and emotional to mar the storyline or any dramatic change of order… the book sticks to whatever it was supposed to deal with and that is one the most important plus about this book.
To all those of you who are wondering, what on earth I am talking about… read Da Vinci Code and you will exactly what I mean.
The writing style is deft and almost journalistic. The pace may not be breakneck (I highly recommend “The Vanished Man” by Jeffrey Deaver… if you are looking for a un-put-down-able thriller… that is a gem of a book) but it is enough to sustain your undivided attention.
Finally, the book will not disappoint you. I personally believe it is a much better book than Da Vinci is.
The only reason it has not shot to superstardom is because the truth that it expounds on may not as earth shattering to the Church now… what with geneticists paying only a two pennies’ worth of hoot to the church while they go about working on molecular biology, recombinant DNA technology and cloning.
The CODE here refers to the genetic code encoded in the double helix of the DNA(de-oxy ribonucleic acid)… the chain that defines who we are and form the most reliable method of fingerprinting us… and all the blah blah. (I shall not lecture anyone on genetics… even though I am highly tempted to… because I can already see the yawns).
Therefore, in the end, all I have got to say is… read the book if you or if you cannot then at least be kind enough to give me feedback on this review… cause I am sure you have read it this far.
- Thank You! We appreciate your effort.