| Product: |
Last Secret of the Temple - Paul Sussman |
| Date: |
23/07/07 (89 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Interesting initial set up
Disadvantages: Overly padded, poor characterisation, too trivial for the setting
A great man once asked, “War – what is it good for?” People will jump to the quick conclusion that the answer is nothing (absolutely nothing huh). However, without war economies would falter (see USA) and inventions would flounder (see Microwave Ovens). The fact is that in today’s society war is a way of making money. One conflict that has been ongoing since WW2 is between Israel and Palestine. These two peoples are not officially at war, yet their dealings with one another have left 1000s dead. The facts are that the Middle East is a powder keg and any author looking to set a book in the region must be sensitive to the politics. Therefore, if you were going to write a book based here would you make a deep political thriller? Not Paul Sussman; he thought it would be a great place to set a completely inappropriate ‘Da Vinci Code’ rip off.
‘The Last Secret of the Temple’ follows three separate storylines as they eventually make there way towards one another. Firstly, there is the tale of Yusuf Khalifa an Egyptian police officer who is investigating the death of an old man at a dig site and how this is connected to a 15 year old murder. Secondly there is Arieh Ben-Roi an Israeli police officer who is battling his inner demons after his fiancée is blown up by a suicide bomber. Ben-Roi must work with Khalifa on the Jewish part of the case. Finally we have Layla al-Madani, a Palestinian journalist who has just received a mysterious letter that points towards an artefact that is 2000 years old and could bring about the downfall of the Israeli State. How are these three cases connected and can these natural enemies work together to discover the secret that has remained hidden for centuries?
There are a lot of things with this book that leave a bad taste in your mouth which is a shame as some of the writing is perfectly good airport fiction. However, standard prose does not make up for the multitude of sins that Sussman puts the reader through. My biggest criticism is the duel tone of the book. For the first half, the book is a pretty harrowing account of life in the Middle East. Each of the characters in the book has lost a loved one or has been horribly disfigured. Essentially, Sussman is trying to say how deep the hatred between Jewish and Palestinian people is. This is perfectly acceptable, and although I found some parts a bit too vivid it was a valid choice. However, to insert into this a dim witted and light story of arcane treasures is unseemly. The ending of the book in particular is poor as the many horrible sights of earlier chapters are brushed under the carpet in favour of an Indiana Jones like ending with supernatural connotations – totally inappropriate.
The failings of this book are not just down to flaws in the ambience, the characters also do not ring true. This is a real shame as the first third of the book suggests that the characters have real promise. Rather than the three main protagonists being heroes they are all deeply flawed with many skeletons in their closets that would effect how they react to a give situation. However, all this good character development is undone when they all become buddies. How could people with such deep seated hatreds possibly become friends overnight? Sussman has once again taken a very heated situation and made light of it.
As well as being naïve towards its subject matter ‘The Last Secret of the Temple’ is a prime example of a poor book that has only been published to ride on the coattails of ‘The Da Vinci Code’. Like ‘Code’ this book is a good 200-300 pages too long. Rather than writing something that would interest us large parts of the book are full of, quite frankly, dull history. As a historian I I do not take this lightly, written well History can be the best story itself. I have read several ‘Code’ like books in the past couple of years and they have all been universally poor. Overlong, dull, pompous and naïve – all these words describe books such as this, ‘Codex’ and ‘The Rule of Four’. The only book that has bucked this trend is ‘The Double Eagle’.
If this book has been 300 pages long instead of 700 I could probably have recommended it to people who like this genre. However, it is not and the vast amounts of padding, poor characterisation, supernatural nonsense and poorly judged handling of the Middle East makes this one a book to avoid. What makes it all the more frustrating is that with a good editor this book could have been ok. Sussman decided to take the risk of setting a book in a volatile area, unfortunately for both him and the reader this risk did not come off and the only secret that is uncovered is that this book is overly heavy handed and not very good.
Author: Paul Sussman
Price: amazon uk - £4.38
play.com - £5.49
Summary: A poor book
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