Saturday, July 18, 2009

Armor of God by Paul Block and Robert Vaughan ****

Armor of God by Paul Block and Robert Vaughan is a post-9/11 thriller of irony. On one side is the People of the Book, and organization dedicated to establishing peace among Jews, Christians and Muslims. On the other side is a terrorist triumvirate: Benjamin Bishara of Migdal Tzedak (Tower of Justice), Fr. Antonio Sangremano of Via Dei (Way of God), and Mehdi Jahmshidi of Arkaan (The Fundamentals). These three men representing Jews, Christians, and Muslims respectively will stop at nothing to prevent the success of the People of the Book. Thus, in order to prevent cooperation among the religions, the religious terrorists must cooperate themselves.

Introduced into this mix are a brilliant hacker, a mystery of a papyrus scroll of a missing gospel, and the first crusade. The characters are flat and predictable, but the multi-threaded plot mixes the history of the crusades with present day terrorism and technology with a bit of DaVinci Code Catholic conspiracy. The result is readable and engaging.

A quick summer read, if you can't find something better.

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