By Charles Brokaw, Forge, $25.99, 368 pages
With the cocksure self-possession of James Bond and the brilliant problem solving of Robert Langdon, Dr. Thomas Lourds is a linguist set on his next big adventure in the DaVinci Code look-alike novel The Lucifer Code. This is the second novel by Charles Brokaw, self-proclaimed scholar and academic. Dr. Thomas Lourds is invited to speak at his friend Dr. Olympia Adnam’s University in Istanbul Turkey. As he exits the plane, he is kidnapped and immediately invited into a mystery that could end or save the world. With the aid of his former lover Dr. Adnam, a gun runner who looks like a co-ed, and a secret brotherhood, Lourds races against time to translate an ancient document that could be the last writings of St. John of Patmos.
For fans of conspiracy theories involving the American government, politics in the Middle East and doomsday scenarios this novel is like a candy store. So action packed that the novel narrates some important discoveries instead of portraying them in scene form, it leaves the reader breathless until the end. Lourds, a hero worth following, definitely proves himself an irreverent ladies man who looks down the barrel of a gun without fear. Sprinkled with historic tidbits about Constantinople, Istanbul and biblical annotations, The Lucifer Code is both highly entertaining and educational.
Reviewed by Rachelle Barrett