The Genesis Secret
This is going to be a hard book to review. Overall it was an enjoyable book but I thought it felt short to my expectations half way there. And the ending was abysmal. The author really wanted to wrap things up and make all alive characters to live happily ever after. So unlike... life.Praises
The Pace - The book really flows from chapter to chapter and the tale until the last 100 pages we follow two different characters. Our main protagonist and the DCI Forrester.
History - So much history and archaelogy in this book that really made me search the net about it. I really enjoy all the detailed information (I read in the net that the german diggers on the site that this book take place were a bit sad because Tom Knox strech the fiction). Nevertheless to me a book is a discovery. Everything they say about a culture I search to see if it is true or fiction. I learn a lot.
The lore - Most of the times the interpretation of the bible fails to achieve anything besides pure fiction and you dismiss it as a Dan Brown wannabe. (Not that I love him). Tom Knox made this novel about Genesis. How humankind is the way it is. Why they left the Hunter-Gatherer society to farming. Why humankind is so propense to violence and sacrificies. Why the similarities between several cultures that are quite apart. The Gigantopithecus relation and hominin. Enfin. Really enjoy it all.
The gore - The depictions of some of the killings are really good. It made me unconfortable. Yes indeed. If I wanted rainbows and pussycats I would read a romance novel. The reason we read thrillers is for a fast paced book with a lot of tension.
Criticism
Main Character Luttrell - He is quite frankly a guy that just do things. Why would the Yezidi tell him all the secrets? That just stupid. A religion that supposedly don't mix with other cultures and keep their secrets, well, secret. Why share it with a journalist? That's stupid.
Loveable Christine - That's a ridicolous good girl. She is almost perfect without flaws. The love with Lutrell just springs up from nowhere. Now a spoiler She should have die. I mean. There is an intense scene when Lutrell and some police officers just watch our main antagonist kill a woman that we know is christine. Then he founds her? That's so... stupid. At that moment I was giving a five star for Tom Knox giving me some itchy gruesome dead and I really was looking forward how Lutrell was going to surpass that vision. Then he founds her... Oh my... The authors from Thrillers books don't like to kill characters. It's like they don't want anything bad to happen to them. They kill off stage characters we don't give a crap just to make the story go. In the end everything is fine and they live happily ever after. The lack of tension is abysmal in most thrillers I read.
Main Antagonist - What a heck was that??? He was the bad guy? So he knows he is a super inteligent psycothic and he talks and talks and talks... He has all characteristics of a comic evil mastermind.
We don't know if he has a cat but... you get the picture. At least he killed some people in some interesting ways...
The Child - The son of Lutrells experiences something just awful. But after being rescued it's just like nothing had happenend. After all she was threatened and obliged to watch a woman being killed like in the style of blood eagle.
Police Forrester - His child had die (and when know it in the beginning) but it has no influence whatsoever in the tale. But in my opinion he was a better protagonist than Lutrell (even if Lutrell had twice the amount of chapters than Forrester).
The Ending - So they won, the bad guy died (even if he achieved his purpose) and after only a couple of weeks of knowing each other Luttrell and Christine get married and NO repurcusions remain in their mind. Even Forrester smile. A old woman had to die, of course, and the young couple inherited her house. Its a beautiful present with a big red ribbon where everything was wrap up just perfect. I couldn't imagine a more... stupid ending. Don't get me wrong I like happy endings from time to time. But this one was just ridicolous.
Final Thoughts
The real question of this book remains. Why was a massive temple built, several thousand years before "civilization" was born, and then covered it up with rocks? Why humankind left the hunter-gathered way to follow a more ardous, less rewarding, time consming way (farming)? These two questions are quite good Tom Knox. Why why why?
Advisable
To someone who wants to read abot archaelogy and history. For a fan of thrillers... hmm maybe to a thriller afficionado.
