A Righteous Load of Nonsense (The Righteous Men - Sam Bourne)

Member Name: sdean

Product:	The Righteous Men - Sam Bourne
Date:	25/03/09 (130 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy reading

Disadvantages: Obvious, convenient

This wouldn't be my 'normal' choice of reading material and I always judge a book by it's cover, and this looked like a regular crime novel. Unfortunately it does not do it for me. I really like historical fiction (The Book Of Air & Shadows I reviewed recently is a prime example) and with a twist of modern life - is brilliant.

The blurb on the back of this book promised me exactly the above. But it was awful. A few people have seen it on my desk in the last couple of weeks as I read it on the train to work. As the title and the cover look quite appealing. I have told them to forget they ever saw the book, but if they did never to read it.

William Monroe (Jr) is a journalist on the New York Times, he spent time in England so has a lovely English accent. He is sent to report on a murder that has happened to an 'unsavoury' character, a pimp, but then is faced with witness stories and a personal account, albeit brief of this person, and saying they were righteous. For example, a woman went to the pimp and needed money for her husband, so went to the pimp to set her up working. Instead of her being one if his girls, he sold his bed and blankets to give her the money so she wouldn't have to prostitute herself (I know unlikely - it gets worse!).

William discovers another murder with a similar vein that the person while bad on the outside was 'righteous'. Beth, Will's wife has been kidnapped and he receives clues to her whereabouts via his Blackberry, he is able to find out where these messages originated because, just by chance his best friend is a computer hacker (I told you it gets worse!). The messages came from the area where the Hassidic Jews are based. Noting this Jewish influence, Will remembers his ex girlfriend, TC - the only person he knows who is Jewish and speak Hebrew (I'm not even going there!).

TC tries to help Will understand the messages sent to him and helps to try and recover his missing wife. According to the Jewish Faith (religion is not my strong point, so bear with me) there are at least 36 righteous men in the world (in each generation) to prevent the destruction of the world and to justify 'Man's' place in the world. This is based on Abraham in the Book of Genesis as he bargains with god to find righteous men to save the cities of Sodom & Gomorrah. If the world is ready for him to reveal himself, it is said one of these 36 men will be the Messiah.

Back to the story, so one by one across the world these 36 men are starting to get murdered, but they don't know by who or when the next one will be. The Jews know who the 36 are by GPS(Global Positioning System) (I almost started to pick my own eyes out by this point). And they are trying to save them all. There is a twist or two at the end which are interesting, but the coincidences of the last couple of hundred pages didn't cut it with me.

You get to like Will Monroe and his character is developed well as is the character of TC, however the peripheral characters are almost there just to push the story along and you tire of wondering if you have seen this person before in the book.

On the front cover it compared this book to The Da Vinci Code (which I haven't read but have seen the film) and the film was much better than this book could ever be. This is easily readable and you might want to read it on the beach. It is a shame they didn't use more legend in this book as that's what I find interesting and could be used in so many ways. It is a shame that the writer 'made things fit' for a quick buck.

All in all I had to finish it, or wonder forever. The 'Righteous' story interested me as not being religious or having any knowledge, it interested me I had never heard of this, but aside from this it was dull rpedictable and obvious. Read it when your brain doesn't want to think !!

Summary: Righteously convenient story