Bob @ Beauty in Ruins
PLEASE NOTE: I'm rarely active here anymore, but please feel free to follow me on Goodreads, where I post regularly.
These are the chronicles of a book addict, a photo junkie, and an aspiring author, rewriting the very fabric of reality one page (and one snapshot) at a time. From the strange to the unusual; the abandoned to the abnormal; the haunted to the historic; the supernatural to the surreal; the forests of dark fantasy, the cemeteries of gothic horror, and the post-apocalyptic ruins of science fiction are the landscapes of my imagination.
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Thriller Review: The Revelation Code by Andy McDermott
While the Nina Wilde & Eddie Chase novels may not exactly be great literature, and are in no great danger is winning Andy McDermott a Pulitzer Prize, they are fantastic escapism adventures. Combining a little bit of Jack Bauer, Indiana Jones, and Dirk Pitt, they're globetrotting treasure hunts with the fate of the world at stake.
The Revelation Code is actually the 11th installment in the series, but they're all written with enough background detail to make them work as stand-alone adventures. As this point in their careers, Nina and Eddie are enjoying early retirement, awaiting the birth of their first child, and generally just trying to stay out of trouble. Unfortunately, trouble has a knack of finding them, and they soon find themselves kidnapped by a religious cult leader and a disgraced US President.
McDermott invests an impressive amount of effort in taking mythological stories and artifacts, creating a plausible history for them, and allowing the reader to get involved in the thrill of the chase without having to believe in the stories surrounding it. He never entirely discounts the possibility of faith, but I will say that his portrayal of Cross and his End of Days cult is the harshest condemnation of organized religion that we've come across in the series. These guys are scary, and their plans for the world are almost - I say, almost - as despicable as those of the ex-President.
There are plenty of big set pieces here, taking us around the world in the search for the angels (statues) of Revelation. True to form, there are also some big action sequences, with epic gunfights, helicopter attacks, and even a climactic encounter with a massive blimp. My only complaint about the book is that the climax is so clearly foreshadowed and so heavily teased in the opening chapters, although the execution of it is still a lot of fun.
The Revelation Code is a fun, frantic read that moves along at a breakneck pace, even through heavy scenes of torture, religious insanity, and political posturing. It's not the best in the series - Nina's pregnancy puts some unfortunate restraints on the story - but it's still big time popcorn adventure fun, complete with a dose of history and humor.
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