The Righteous Men [Paperback]

The author had a good basic plot, unfortunately our hero, Will Monroe Jr., is a totally unsympathetic character. Monroe comes across as a British version of a whining, spoiled yuppie. In one breath he is crying about the kidnapping of his wife Beth, the next he is admiring his ex-girlfriend's body. Please give me a break! Frankly, I was hoping Monroe Jr. would meet his demise somewhere along the way. You guess it, he makes it to the end just fine. You could also see who was behind murders of the righteous men, it could only have been one of two characters from the book. I hope Bourne can write a better leading character the next time around.

I read a lot of thrillers, and THE RIGHTEOUS MEN is probably the weakest I've read in quite a few months. This is an obvious knock-off of THE DA VINCI CODE, except it's nowhere near as good or well-researched.

The first part of this book plays out as a straightforward kidnapping story. Will Monroe is a reporter for the NEW YORK TIMES, and his wife has been abducted for reasons that are unknown to him. Since the kidnappers warn Monroe not to contact the cops, he investigates the kidnapping himself. His investigation leads him to a Hasidic Jewish community in Crown Heights, New York. This, in turn, leads him to discover a highly improbable conspiracy plot rooted in Jewish mysticism.

This book has a potentially interesting story, but it's severely handicapped by pedestrian writing and cardboard characters. The lead character, Will Monroe, is a clueless bore, and is downright unlikable when he makes a sloppy pass at his ex-girlfriend when his wife is still missing. Monroe hates himself for doing this -- so why should the reader feel differently?

Also, this plot is highly based on a series of highly unlikely coincidences. For example, what are the odds that Monroe's ex-girlfriend would happen to be an expert on the religious community that kidnapped his wife? Or that his best friend happens to be a brilliant computer expert who can track down the source of certain e-mail messages that Monroe receives? None of this is remotely believable. Even worse, it's not entertaining.

There are puzzles in this book, just like the Da Vinci code, but most of them are boring and have little relevance to the plot. Plainly, they were just thrown in this novel to capitalize on THE DA VINCI CODE and its success.

It's slapdash books like this that remind me how well constructed THE DA VINCI CODE really was. Avoid this one. There are much better thrillers out there that deserve your money.

This was an exciting, intelligent thriller. My response to the many negative reviewers is that a prior knowledge of Jewish mysticism helps understand the premise of the novel. Having studied Jewish mysticism, I found the plot extremely plausible, and therefore much more frightening. I loved this book because I couldn't put it down, but also because of its unique premise. It also came across as very authentic, right down to the Yiddish words and phrases. A great, fun, enlightening reading experience.