Lies? Nahhhh.... It's The Book of Snores
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Banes & Noble thinks:
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Author: Brad Meltzer
Title: The Book of Lies Genre: thriller It's said that prostitutes practice the world's oldest profession, but criminal defense lawyers surely come in a close second. After all, according to the Bible there was murder most foul in only the second generation of humankind. For reasons yet unknown, Cain took sibling rivalry to its illogical extreme, making Abel history's first homicide victim (hmmm... a treatment for the newest franchise, "CSI: Eden"?) For his sin, we're told that Cain was banished, "marked" for eternity. Even by Bishop Usher's calculation, that was sixty centuries or so ago... but what if that "mark of Cain" were not a punishment, but a boon from God for Cain's repentance? And what if it were not, as one might logically assume, a sort of pre-literacy Scarlet Letter; but a physical entity? And what if... gasp... that blessed Mark had been passed down across the centuries? Well, if that were the case, wouldn't such a tale put The da Vinci Code to shame? Apparently, that's what Brad Meltzer thought, so the story's now on the bookstore shelves: Meltzer's latest, The Book of Lies. Cal Harper's had a tough life - small wonder that at only twenty-eight, his hair is snow white. Dad was convicted of killing Mom, right before little Cal's eyes. Dad disappeared right after getting out of prison; son hasn't seen him in eighteen years. Cal got in big trouble with his Customs bosses, big enough that he lost his hard-won badge. So he's begun to give back, give by helping those less fortunate than himself. When a homeless man he's trying to help turns out to be his own father, though, all heck breaks loose. Since the Coincidence Fairy chose that moment to involve Lloyd Harper in the search for the Mark of Cain, Cal's dragged along on a bizarre journey, kicking and screaming. The Thules (a Scandinavian branch of the Knights Templar?) who had long preserved the Mark of Cain lost it in WWII, but it was found by a Russian Jew who later emigrated to the USA and became Mitchell Siegel. Yeah, that Mitchell Siegel: father of Jerry Siegel, co-creator of Superman. So when Cal and Daddy Harper find the first clue (O! Draconian Devil!), they immediately light out for Cleveland, birthplace of Superman. But - natch - there's a bad guy on their trail, complete with a weird dog and a disembodied voice whispering in his ear. Well, the whispering comes through a cell phone, but The Prophet is as mysterious as any disembodied voice... And, of course, no chase through the sewers of Cleveland would be complete without an Inspector Javert, herein played by Juban (Jewish-Cuban) Homeland Security agent Naomi Molino. OK, I was kidding about Cleveland's sewers... not that the story doesn't stink, mid you. As for the Mark of Cain? Expect the expected: impossible-to-decipher clues deciphered like child's play; twisty, turny plot threads; and an Olympic Decathlon performance by the Mother of all Coincidence Fairies. All of which leads to... a dud. Yeah. A dud. Give it up, people; The da Vinci Code train has left the station. You can write your "lost religious artifact" plus "ancient guardians" plus "devilish puzzles solved by simple folk" all you want; Dan Brown is not selling franchises. You might as well go after Harry Potter - although I assume some are and I just haven't noticed. Apparently Brad Meltzer has given up on his DC-based political thrillers (First Counsel, The Zero Game) to jump on the religious-relic bandwagon, a paltry five years after TdVC hit the market. Can you say "Johnny-come-lately"?
Meltzer's attempt to Brown up the bestseller charts again, however, is particularly clumsy, marrying as it does a mystery from the dawn of humanity to a real-life twentieth-century murder. Apparently hoping to capitalize on resurging popularity of Superman and comic books, Meltzer tossed the Cain and Abel story into a bowl along with Jerry Siegel's life story and flipped the switch on his mixer. Actually, it seems more like he turned on a food processor, since the resulting plot is an almost random mishmash of disconnected elements rising out of nowhere and disappearing just as fast. Viewpoint rotates through the eyes of the hunted (Cal) and the two hunters (Thule-guy and Homeland Security-woman). Yet that rotation seems stilted and awkward: Cal and his "team" keep getting all their information from Cal's buddy Roosevelt - a defrocked Methodist minister with what seems to be a direct line to an Old Testament research think tank. The "bad-guy" hunter Ellis appears to be some sort of evil anti-MacGyver, capable of wreaking havoc in two places at once with just a dog, a badge, and a roll of duct tape. "Good-guy" hunter Naomi flits across the country on a whim, backed up only by a cell-phone connection to a wheelchair-bound tech guru. For some unknown reason, even the FBI gets in on the action at one point, only to simply disappear a few pages later. The Book of Lies is a plot with logical holes large enough for a Peterbilt. Far from being interesting, the blend of the Cain story with the Siegel saga is forced and for the most part unbelievable. Its actors have all the depth of a saucer of milk, with back-stories that do more to raise questions than describe personal character. Pacing is non-existent; serving only to rush the reader from plot twist to plot twist at breakneck speed. The bizarre mixture of the Biblical Genesis story with archaeology and history serves only to muddy waters. In the end, however - and I mean in the literal end of the book - the great secret that has led to all this action turns out to be something worthy of an episode of "Sesame Street." Not that there's anything wrong with "Sesame Street," mind you, but, geez, Meltzer! The bottom line? don't waste your time on The Book of Lies. all content copyright © 2014 by scmrak
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