My Review :: The Revelation Code by Andy McDermott

The Revelation Code by Andy McDermott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

he Revelation Code by Andy McDermott

Got my hands on a ARC courtesy of Net Galley. My humble thanks to the publisher & author for making this avaible to me in exchange for a honest and unbiased review.

Now, since I read the last two books in this series back to back I have a better understanding of the relationships between the two main characters. Wilde and Chase are back and this time they are dragged back into relic hunting unwillingingly when a crazy evangelist kidnaps Chase in order to force Wilde to work for him. He's sicced on Wilde and Chase by an older foe one whom they thought was put away a long time ago.

We also see the return of Mossad agent Jared Zane in this book. He's becoming a replacement in the Wilde-Chase team for Henry Castille. At the end of book#10 it was revealed that Nina is pregnant and the new book picks off a couple of months after the incident in New York with the escaped Nazi.

The story revolves around the coming of the end of the days when the 4 Angels from Euphrates are released as foretold in the Book of Revelation. Ezekiel Cross - the main baddie, comes across one of the angels in the marshlands for Iraq and seeing the chemical gas released from the Angel when it explodes while under fire from the Iraqi gunship has a revelation that he is chosen by God to bring out the coming of the 7th Angel and the day of reckoning.

The story moves along typical of a Wilde/Chase story, Chase escapes, finds Nina, helps her out, baddies set off a sample of whats to come, Wilde/Chase try to head them off, the bad guys look like winning and then Wilde/Chase pull out a amazing out of the blue stunt involving all the set pieces laid out by the author in advance and in the process causing untold destruction of property while finding a new archeological site of extreme relevance.

In this book, Wilde & Chase find the Tebernacle from the time of Exodus containing the ten commandments, the rod of Aaron, the manna from heaven and the 4th angel in the temple of God containing 24 chairs of elders surrounding the chair for God. I think the Book of Revelation was a moot point here, the purpose would have been better served if Andy McDermott had gone with the quest for the Tebernacle with some fictional history revolving around it rather than the Revelation quest.

The quest seemed very easy, the deciphering of the codes involved nothing more than a map, some locations from the book of revelation and viola super archeologist Wilde finds it immeditately, in a course of 2 days she finds all 4 angels. The threat from the angels was plausible, but never really was there any doubt that the plot would be stopped in time. The only intriguing twist was the emergence of an older villain from the previous books. Too bad the character did not go anywhere.

I would rate this one from McDermott a 3 star. The story worked but looked like the same old, stuff done a hundred times before in the previous books.

My Review:: The Pursuit by Janet Evanovich & Lee Goldberg

The Pursuit by Janet Evanovich
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fox & O'Hare are back for their 5th adventure. This time the book picks up from the cliffy at the end of book 4 where O'Hare arrives to find Fox missing. Apparently our thief extraordinaire has been kidnapped.

What the kidnapper fails to realize is where Fox goes, O'Hare chases, pretty soon our dynamic duo and their group of misfit geniuses are working to stop a bio terror threat with a aim of making money. They meet with a villain prone to theatrics but whose sense of fair play does not exist at all, who will double cross them as soon as his purpose is served and who is using them as a pawn in this own game of one upmanship OR is he???

The collaboration between Lee Goldberg and Janet Evanovich is pretty amazing, the books are furiously paced and the plot moves along without getting side tracked. There is enough character development within the story for the user to keep wanting more. The chemistry between the lead pair positively sizzles but the auxiliary characters have enough page time as well.

All in all Evanovich & Goldberg have delivered another winner here.

My sincere thanks to Net Galley, the publishers Headline and the authors Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg for making an ARC available to me in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

My Review:: The God's Eye View by Barry Eisner

The God's Eye View by Barry Eisler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Many thanks to the publisher, the author and Net Galley for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for a free and unbiased review.

Information Security, privacy are the buzz words today. The entire technology industry swears by it and provides heartfelt promises that your data is private, its yours, they are just the keepers of that data and do not monetize it in any way, shape or form. Ironical don't you say when in today's world, the company's net worth is determined by how much access it has to the user's data.

The world was left stunned by Edward Snowden. The programs exposed by Snowden which impinges on the privacy of the people was not just all encompassing but overreaching in itself. Nothing was considered sacrosanct and there was no definition of private. It is on this premise that Eisner's novel starts off on.

Now NSA has been vilified, tried in the media and viewed with suspicion by the entirety of the world. Nobody trusts when the NSA says it does not peek into your private data or PII (personally identifiable information). It is always taken with a pinch of salt. In this novel too NSA has designed backdoors into almost all the systems in the world and processes that information real time. The only level of security is the fact that processing of that data is in parts, takes time to analyze and nobody has a clear picture except for the NSA director the top boss - General Theodore Anders and his second in command General Mike Remar. They have implemented The God's Eye - a program using which the NSA can access into real time feeds from every camera around the world and there is only one person in charge for monitoring the data: Evie Gallagher.

The good General also has in his back pocket two troubleshooters who resolve any problems that arise when there is a threat of exposure for The God's Eye View - Thomas Delgado and Marvin Magnus. One a narcissist psychopathic killer and the other a deaf trained assassin with loyalty to only the director.

The brainwashing or inculcation of Magus reminded me of another book The Brotherhood of Rose by David Morrell which dealt with the similar situation where a man called Eliot get the unflinching loyalty of two orphan boys whom he treats like his sons and trains as assassins with undivided loyalty to only him.

I read the book in chunks, I could never finish this in 1-2 settings as I generally do with my other books because quite frankly this one scared me the shit out of me. I am from the tech industry and have a modicum of understanding about technology and what is espoused here is something that is doable as the author backs it up with the data in the footnotes.

The idea that somebody is always peeking over my shoulder and seeing what I am doing online is scary, now put that person over your shoulder 24 X 7 X 365 and the person real, the picture that emerges is very, very frightening.

It is true that 9-11 changed the way security agencies think, the threat level was high but the paranoia and the sheer scale of the data collection effort that these agencies embarked on is unprecedented. Nothing was sacrosanct and nothing was considered out of bounds. The only thing that is protecting the entirely of the population that is digital right now is that the time taken to analyze such data is longer as we do not yet have the necessary machine learning capabilities, but the keyword here is YET.

It is a dodgy world out there the digital espionage with no oversight and minimal controls over those doing the spying. This has all the hallmarks of a lit powder keg and when it goes Kaboom it is gonna be royal mess...

My Review:: An Invisible Client by Victor Methos

An Invisible Client by Victor Methos
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is only the 2nd book that I am reading from Victor Methos. I got this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. My thanks to the author and publisher for the opportunity.

In legal parlance An Invisible Client is a person who lives and breaths but does not legally exists, i.e. a person who is values at how much that person can earn. Anybody who's not gone to an Ivy League school, pulls in at least 6 figures or has a family business waiting for them are an invisible client. In short nobody gives a s**t about them. This legal terminology excludes 99% of the world population, but then who said law had to be fair, it just had to be effective.

Noah Bryce's story is that of a high-flying, personal injury lawyer who has made a life out of settling cases out of courts on behalf of his clients. He is wealthy, successful and at the top of his game. He has only one rule, he does not take Invisible Clients. His ordinary existence is put out of gear when his ex asks him to take the case of her cousin whose son is poisoned after taking a cough medicine promoted by a company called Pharma-K. Medicine which had acetonitrile which converts into cyanide when inside the body.

I will not summarize the book contents, coz it is good enough that people can pick up a copy and read it for themselves. Instead I will summarize what resonated with me. In court room scenes where the prosecution and the defense are squaring off against each other is electric. The arguments made by Noah Bryce are powerful and the are an indictment of how our society has progressed that it no longer even shows a semblance of pity towards the weak and under-privileged.

Our society has become openly and completely biased in favor of the rich and powerful who manipulate the system as they deem fit and the common man is left paying the price for their actions. The recent past is full of such instances, Enron, BP spill, the market crash of 2008 all of these resonates loudly and clearly, so may mistakes but not one culprit or punishment.

Where do we go from here, in the book the fictional Noah Bryce put aside his bias and championed an underdog to the peril of his own health, but where are the real life Noah Bryce's and when will the oppressed be championed??

I will recommend this all those who love legal thrillers, this is a great read and makes me want to pick more from Victor Methos in future.

In the end I will leave you all with a thought from Solon from 560 BC

 Justice will not come until those who are not injured are as outraged as those who are

My Review - The Sound of Glass by Karen White

The Sound of Glass by Karen   White
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was my GoodReads group A Good Thriller book pal Book of the Month Read with my GoodReads pal Kirsten.

First of all this book was on my to read list way to long. I always had a thought in the back of my mind that I may never get to reading it, but if I did not then it would have been my loss.

Karen White spins a emotional tale in this novel. Set in the deep southern country of America, this is basically what small town Americana looks like. The book opens with a plane crash. From there on it journeys into the realm of human emotions, bonds and entanglement. It is a story of how people, often strangers are brought together by circumstance or fate and how they try to make the best of their lives.

The story flows with little ebbs, the characters are nuanced and the drama within the novel holds your attention. Of the many characters in the book, my favorite is Owen (sorry Rocky). He's a kid struggling to deal with the loss of his father, a upheaval from the only home he has known and also dealing with his newly met step-sister who is almost as old as his mother.

The characters are myriad and the end is a bit emotional. The book deals with uncomfortable topics like spousal abuse, character death and reprisal. Ultimately The Sound of Glass is the triumph of human qualities and of perseverance most of all.

The only places where I was a bit disappointed with the author's writing was when she dealt with uncomfortable death scenes, the author just glossed over the fact that a major character died and the prose just cuts to the next happening in the life of the main actors. So that's the reason for docking a star.

Overall I would recommend this book for a read.

Book Review - Eeny Meeny by M.J. Arlidge

Eeny Meeny by M.J. Arlidge
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My many thanks to Net Galley, the publisher PENGUIN GROUP Berkley, NAL / Signet Romance, DAW
and the author M.J. Arlidge for providing me with the ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

This book came highly recommended from my group in GoodRead "A Good Thriller" group. and I must say it was worth it's weight in gold. I started this book very late due to being busy with other work but I must say I am glad I finally caught up to this little nugget.

Dark is the work I have heard used often with this book. I must admit I was having problems identifying the genre of work as I am not used to reading many dark books. But this one was different. Once you got started into it, the book grabbed hold of you and never really let go. Even when the book ended because you need to know what happens next in the life of Detective Helen Grace. Ohh.. Just where do I start with this one??

A diabolical villain or a deeply flawed and psychologically scarred heroine or the gory murders. Charles Darwin proposed the survival of the fittest theory but Arlidge has taken it to another level. Humanity when reduced to its basic is just that, survival at all costs. The emotions like empathy, kindness and kinship does not mean much.

The story line is very intricate, the plots and twists are planned to the perfection and the execution is pretty amazing, so much so that when the common thread tying up the entire exercise in macabre flies at you you are pretty much blindsided and left thinking how the hell did I miss this.

The story has a little bit of everything to keep the readers from different genres satisfied. Suspense to keep those indulged, action to keep the junkies interested, darkness, macabre and gore to keep the darkies engaged, thrill to keep the seekers seeking and finally a fitting finale to satisfy all.

Arlidge has just shot to the top of my must read authors. The only difficulty here is I would like him is smaller doses rather than one big chunk to keep the dark in me satisfied while not overwhelming my senses as well.

Kudos…

Book Review -- Boko Haram: Inside Nigeria's Unholy War by Mike Smith

Boko Haram: Inside Nigeria's Unholy War by Mike Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My many thanks to Net Galley, the publisher I.B. Tauris and the author Mike Smith for providing me with the ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Somalia and Nigeria are two hotspots of trouble in Africa. One affected by piracy and the other by militant Islamism. I don't believe in the fundamentalist interpretation of any religion. IMO it is just an excuse to cover bloodthirsty behavior. Islam is a peaceful religion, none of my friends who practice Islam subscribe to the school of thought propagated by the fundamentalist. It is their own greed for power that makes them cloak their fight in the garb of religion to give it legitimacy.

Boko Haram is no different. Emerging through the crucible of Nigeria's impoverished North east region, Boko Haram is using religion to cloak its bloodthirstiness. Mike Smith has forged a convincing tale of emergence of this terror group from its initial years under radical preacher Mohammad Yusuf, the Boko Haram group was based on the Wahabi ideology. Initially attracting followers with his fiery speeches and opposition to Nigerian government rules and thoughts, the group evolved into a ultra conservative terror outfit after Yusufs death and the emergence of his deputy Abubakar Shekhau as the new leader of the group.

Nigeria is a important country in African continent. It has a semblance of democracy and is oil rich. This makes it the de facto leader for growth, prosperity and stability in the African region which is inundated with myriad problems like famine, poverty and ethnic conflicts. Nigeria's is too divided between an impoverished and reeling under the aegis of Boko Haram North and the relatively affluent South with its oil riches. Overall the country is still in doldrums due to deep rooted corruptions and the lack of political will in the Nigerian leadership to grow the country.

The schism between the top elite of the country and the poor is exploited by Boko Haram. Denouncing the government the group emerged initially as trying the overthrow the government to replace it with Islamic Caliphate. But the methods and the legacy left behind by the group is too bloody and too gory to justify any teachings of Islam and the group remains as a terrorist organization in its entirety.

Mike Smith spins a cohesive story about the emergence of the group, the growth under Yusuf, the downturn after Yusuf's death and their bloody reemergence under the aegis of Shekau. It gives insights into the cultural, economic and social crucible that is Nigeria which has forged one of the most deadliest terror outfits in the world today.

Book Review -- The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly

The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Matt Reilly is my favorite action/adventure author. Nobody does it bigger, better and badass than Matt. People tend to crib about the lack of factuality or the over the top action sequences, but hey… if you can digest Hollywood then there is no reason not to digest this with a pinch or a bag of salt…which ever you would prefer.

The sheer scale and the grand stage of each and every action/adventure book of Matt Reilly is what sets him apart from his peers. I read The Seven Ancient Wonders first and since then I am hooked and I am an unabashed fan boy…

Coming to the latest novel, The Great Zoo of China, when I first saw the title I was a bit intrigued and I was thinking what can you write about a Zoo Matthew? My curiosity was piqued and I got my hands on the book first from a friend while I was travelling from USA to India and the then got a copy from Net Galley in exchange for an honest unbiased review courtesy of the publisher Gallery, Threshold, Pocket Books and the author himself. Boy oh boy what a ride it has been….

China - when we think China we think an industrial powerhouse of production, flooding the world markets with goods made cheaply and efficiently that anywhere in the world. The place where the world comes to get their things built according to their blueprints. But that said let it not be said that the Chinese are not ambitious enough. They are…. They most definitely are on the quest to become a world superpower not only militarily but also economically and most importantly socially. That means bringing tourists to China, so what can they do that will get them enough tourists and put them on par or even above America with its Disneyland?

The idea is building a Zoo, the most biggest, most baddest and the most unique zoo ever seen by the world. A one of a kind zoo… A zoo with… DRAGONS… yes you read me right.. Dragons…

Jurassic Park comes to mind immediately…. Well the Chinese have seen it too and learnt their lessons from it. It is a project that has been in the making since the last 40 years when the Chinese quite literally stumbled into a nest of dragon eggs. Since then it has been a ultra mega $240 billion project to build and showcase the might of China with the greatest zoo ever built by man - A Dragon Zoo with the different species like Red Bellied, Yellow Jacket, Purple Royals, Brown Swamps and so on…

The Chinese claim that they have tamed these beasts, and in fact even trained them… nothing can go wrong in the zoo, of course it is perfectly safe, they even make the dragons put in an performance for the VIP guests from the West including writers from NY Times, the US Ambassador to China and Dr. CJ Cameron and her brother Hamish from Nat Geo. It is a wonderful world, an exquisite but controller world, where the dragons know who their masters are.. So what can go wrong???

Except that everything does, in typical Reilly style it goes to hell hand over fist. With the Great Zoo Matt Reilly delivers his first action heroine Dr. CJ Cameron. She has faced alligators in the everglades, and is the worlds leading expert on reptiles, but soon she finds that Dragons are a different ball game. They are intelligent, they are planners and they are after a bigger goal… Freedom… or is it???

Read the book the find out more, but with the Great Zoo Matt Reilly has taken his game up a notch further. Pitting man against beast, The Great Zoo of China is a high octane adventure that will grab you by the scruff of your neck and will not let you go until the book is finished. You will feel like you have completed a roller coaster ride of your life, but expect a sleepless night if you pick this book up as a night read as you will not be able to put it down… Beware….

Book Review -- Inside the O'Briens by Lisa Genova

Inside the O'Briens by Lisa Genova
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher Gallery, Threshold, Pocket Books and the author Lisa Genova for granting me the permission to read this ARC of the book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. Your efforts are much appreciated...

Dr. Lisa Genova a neurologist wrote this book to bring forth awareness on the most cruel disease ever know to man - Huntington's.

I must admit I was not aware of Huntington's before I read this book. I must also say I did not think much about the disease which statistically only 37,000 people suffer in USA… There are bigger stuff happening was my take on it… until I read the book…

Huntington's is cruel - it rightly called out by Dr. Genova. There can be nothing, I repeat nothing worse than watching yourself waste away bit by bit and do nothing to stop it. Lisa Genova paints an haunting story of the O'Briens there Joe gets diagnosed with Huntington's.

It is difficult when you know you are going to waste away to nothingness, but it is even more challenging knowing that you may have passed on the disease to your kids. There is nothing more hurting, more cruel or emotionally draining to a parent than knowing that your kids are going to suffer in their life and you are cause of it…. My heart went out to Joe. From a strapping, in shape, physically fit police officer to a wasted away person not even in control of his own limbs. From being self sufficient to being dependent on people around you for even the smallest thing in life.

While Joe struggles to find balance in his life after being forced into retirement with disability, he also has to deal with knowing that 2 of his 4 children are bound to get the disease. Both of them in the best of their health and at the peak of their challenging professions, a firefighter and a ballet dancer. To complicate the problem Joe is about to be a grand parent and they don't know if their grandson may/may not be infected with this disease… it makes the struggles in their life almost seem inhuman. Disease is a great leveler, it does not do emotions.

As Joe tries to find a semblance of balance within himself, his youngest daughter struggles with her own set of problems. Growing up in the shadow of a talented older sister (the ballerina), Katie is still trying to find her place in life and dealing with the complexities of being in a relationship with a black man and having trouble bringing him into open with her Irish Catholic family. She also struggles to move ahead in life when confronted with the scepter of Huntington's hanging over her head.

The book in essence is the parallel stories of Joe and Katie, as one struggles to come to terms with what is and the other struggles to come to terms with what may be. Ultimately it is the story of Joe trying to set an example for his children that the disease cannot be beaten, but it can definitely be lived with.

Inside the O'Briens gave me a healthy respect for the message that Dr. Genova is trying to convey. Bring about an awareness for Huntington's while helping the readers understand that Huntington's can cause you problems, but it cannot take away from you your quality of life.

A quality read which gives insight into how really life is…

Book Review -- Key Witness by Sandra Bolton

Key Witness: A Southwest Mystery by Sandra Bolton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Courtesy of NetGalley, publishers Amazon Publishing, Thomas & Mercer and author Sandra Bolton. Many thanks for making the advance copy of this book available to me at my request in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Key Witness is a murder mystery investigation involving multiple stakeholders, the Italian Mafia, the Mexican Mafia, the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang and a few others thrown in to make it a complete pot pouri.

As a murder mystery cum chase I would rate it just about 3. But what pushes the rating up 1 more star is the background scenes. The book is mainly based in the Navajo Nation. The author does an incredible job of describing and bringing the haunting landscape to life.

You experience the land through the eyes of the newbie in this case the protagonist Abe Freeman, who has embarked on a road trip to find himself after losing his girlfriend to cancer. He gets mixed up in a murder of a fellow drifter he chances across overnight and subsequently becomes a Key Witness in the whodunit.

Brought in by the female protagonist of the story Emily Etcity, he has to stay in the state so that he can give witness when required. Emily is a Navajo and she takes him on board to keep him out of the way.

The Native American landscape is drawn in haunting beauty and through the various characters living on the land, you can feel the pride, the sense of attachment and the love that they have for the land.

The connect and respect that the tribe people and their ways of life give a very profound and powerful message of communing with Nature in a world shadowed by consumerism.

IMO that lifted the quality of the book from Like to Love.

The ending leaves a unconcluded story of Abe Freeman, the murder mystery is solved, but Abe Freeman is still on the road to self discovery and he needs to find himself first and then deal with the relationship that he has with Emily and her family.

The book deserves a sequel. We deserve to see the story of Abe Freeman played out to the end.

Book Review -- Blood Ransom by John Boyle

Blood Ransom: Stories from the front line in the war against Somali piracy by John Boyle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Courtesy of NetGalley, publishers Bloomsbury USA and author John Boyle. Many thanks for making the advance copy of this book available to me at my request in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Piracy… reminds us of the buccaneering Jack Sparrow and his group of rag tags aboard the Black Pearl. Treasure hunters, swashbuckling adventurers romanticized by Hollywood to bigger and bigger glory.  Pirates are something people thought active in olden days, the 1700's and 1800's at the height of imperial glory. Something nostalgic…

Not true, just look at the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia, aboard a ship carrying cargo, chances are 8 out 10 times you would have seen groups of 6-7 people aboard a fast moving skiff firing AK-47s and RPGs at your ship. Who are these people? Somali Pirates

High Seas piracy is big business. Somali's have the control of the entire market for piracy, the ransom amounts from 2008 to 2014 run to more than 150 million dollars, an amount that is almost equal to the GDP of the entire country.

Somalia is a failed state. Europeans drew borders on the land of Africa and divided it into different countries. But the people who have a nomadic lifestyle and absolutely no concept of country but great believers of the clan system immediately started fighting amongst themselves for supremacy. How do you bring unity and peace among tribes or clans who have been at each others throats for hundreds of years? The result is a country divided by chaos.

With nobody interested in their welfare and hammered on all sides by war, natural calamity and disastrous deep sea fishing by greedy corporates and countries taking advantage of a non existent government, Somalia has been looted and raped at will. Toxic wastes have been dumped off its coasts further wrecking havoc among the populace already struggling with famine.  What do ordinary people do when the only choice between life and death is a way of crime?

Piracy in high seas is a lucrative business in Somalia. As it with all illegal business, it is organized and has deep ties to the Mafia and is extremely well organized and efficient. Well it was until the world sat up and took notice of the loss being caused by the Somali's to the world economy.

The navies of the entire world converged on Somalia to stop a bunch of couple thousand Somali's risking life and limb to conquer ships thousands of miles out into the open sea aboard only tiny ships and skiffs. It is an unequal war one Somalia is in the process of losing but it was not won without a bitter fight.

Blood Ransom takes you behind the scenes, what makes a person become a pirate? Why does he risk his life? What is the life like at in high seas hunting for a ship?

Blood Ransom is the sad truth of a nation left behind by the world, a story of human greed and profiteering, a story of struggle for existence that mutates into a life of crime. It is a in depth look at the rise and fall of Somali piracy, the book is fast paced, deals with anecdotes from both sides of the fence, the ones that pirated and the ones that tried to prevent. It is also the story of the victims who have been kidnapped. Some who are lucky enough to be ransomed, some who have spent years in captivity and some who are still waiting for their freedom.

If you feel that piracy is something romantic like Johnny Depp portraying it in The Pirates of Caribbean, then think again and read this book.


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Book Review -- The Bleiberg Project by David Khara

The Bleiberg Project: A Consortium Thriller by David S. Khara
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to Net Galley, the publishers Le French Book and the author David Khara to have provided me with this free edition of the book in exchange for an unbiased and an honest review.

This book is the first of a series about something called as The Consortium and another one of those gems which has been translated from French to make its debut in the English market. With the sheer number of languages spoken and being printed in the world, what we may be missing boggles the mind. But then that is a story for another day as they say…

The novel opens in 1942 Poland with an SS soldier reminiscing of about a Germany free from Hitler's paranoia and ambition all the while awaiting the arrival of Heinrich Himmler himself to the camp that he is guarding. All his reminiscing is for nothing as he is soon dead… an official victim of an assassination attempt against Himmler.

Fast forward to the present day, we are presented with Jeremy Corbain or Jay Novachek as he calls himself a high flying, self pitying Wall Street broker who is greeted with the news that his estranged father is dead. Suddenly thrust into a shadowy world where he no longer knows the good from the bad, Jeremy seeks to make sense of what's happening around him.

The Bleiberg Project takes to the times of writers like Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy who could spin a mean conspiracy thriller of shadowy organizations, secret cabals. The Bleiberg project gives us a shadowy group going by the name of Consortium which wants to redesign the world in its shape. The storyline moves back and forth in the past and present and is tied together effectively with various POVs from the main characters in the stories - Jeremy, his father, Eytan Morg.. The pace is frentic and the story holds your interest in the premise that is monstrous to consider but somehow looks implementable given the state that the world is in right now - genetic mutation on humans.

The quintessential Nazi quest for the perfect Übermensch and the Consortiums quest for creating a new World finds perfect partners in each other and years on clinical trials on humans give them a perfect specimen a child - number 302. When the child escapes from the its captors and with fall of the Reich, the Consortiums returns to the background continuing with its research and pulling the strings from behind.

The novel has its moments of humor with the interaction between the various characters and the dialogues which are alternatively funny, cynical and sarcastic in turns. All kudos to the translator for retaining the humor and the integrity of the dialogs in the process of translation.

A solid 4.5 stars. I would love to read the follow to this ASAP. Ohh… Wait I do have the follow up novel courtesy Net Galley. Well I must get started...

Book Review -- The Resurrection Maker by Glenn Cooper

The Resurrection Maker: A Thriller by Glenn Cooper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The very first book that I requested from Net Galley. My many thanks to Net Galley, the publisher Lascaux Media and the author Glenn Cooper for providing me with the ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

The Resurrection Maker is a curious mixture of science, spirituality, religion and quest. The book manages to mix all these aforementioned scenarios while keeping the tempo high enough to sustain interest. Arthur Malory is a grail aficionado. In company of the Grail Loons they meet and debate the various theories of where the Grail might be found.

When Loon founder finds a trail which may lead back to the enigmatic times of King Arthur and his quest for the Grail, Arthur gets involved in the quest when he finds out that he is indeed from nobility carrying the blood and an extra rib right from the time of King Arthur.

The book is plotted very intelligently. The novel movies between the various POVs like Sir Thomas Malory, King Arthur while it is being told in a third person narrative when referencing the current time lines. Cooper plots a tale that makes Jesus's resurrection a scientific fact rather than a religious miracle.

As in all tales you have good questors and you have bad questors… In this game the bad men are the Khem an ancient society of over 2000 years who have been on a quest for the Grail for their own purposes. To study and achieve immortality by using it. The Khem are all brilliant scientists who have come through ages by trying to find the Grail and study it scientifically. They have been alchemists, chemists and finally they are physicists.

The quest for the Grail takes Mallory to a variety of places while trying to be one step ahead of the Khem. I loved the way Cooper introduced the Cathedral of Sangrada Familia in the book and I was thrilled that I learnt about a new place and person from this book. The architectural genius of Antoni Guidi is marvelous and the book is a brilliant tribute to the great man.

Book Review -- Shadow Ritual by Eric Giancometti and Jacques Ravenne

Shadow Ritual by Eric Giacometti
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to the Author Eric Giancometti and Jacques Ravenne, Publisher Le French Book and NetGalley for providing me with an Advanced Copy of the book for review purposes. I in no way make any profit from my reviews and all the opinions expressed in this review are 100% mine and genuine.

I quote this from the publisher "When this book was first released in France, it sold 250,000 copies and was translated into 17 languages. Now it is finally in English. The nine-book series has gone on to sell 2 million copies worldwide."

Now that's a boast and an inherent confidence in the book. This looks intriguing enough to request an ARC from NetGalley for reading...

Having sold a quarter million copies in 17 languages, the English edition of this book is here. I did some searching on GoodReads and discovered that this is the 2nd book in a series of 9 books, but the first released in English.

The book opens in 1945 Berlin, Germany. Hitler's Nazis are about to be overwhelmed by invading Russians. Officers from SS are pulled out for a special mission by the Thule the organization dedicated to the Aryan race within the German Reich, to E&E and then become sleeper agents, waiting for further instructions. Hitler and Nazi Germany is about to be vanquished, but the mind that fuelled the growth of this Reich is being preserved and mutated in a new form for greater purposes.

This is first book that I have read in the series and I am intrigued by the concept. The author weaves together various estoric and cult groups like Knight Templars, Freemasons and the Thule-Gellescahft into a very fast paced and speedy story that races through France. The repartee between the two lead characters Detective Marcas and Special Agent Zewinski is good, they contrast and balance each other effectively and the chemistry between them gives me hope for the upcoming books in the series.

A great debut and very fast paced thriller. A breezy read.