From Publishers Weekly
Robert Ludlumesque political intrigue with a religious twist is on offer in this newest thriller from Monteleone (The Reckoning; The Blood of the Lamb). At the heart of the story is a sliver of stained glass depicting the eyes of the Madonna, which is believed to possess supernatural powers. The artifact has long been safe in the benevolent hands of the Vatican and its secret society of defenders, the Elder Knights of Malta, but as the novel kicks off, the shard is stolen by the Guild, a shadowy international cabal. Shortly after the theft, American computer whiz Kate Harrison is framed for the double murder of her husband and sister. She goes on the lam with private investigator Matt Etchison, whose Navy SEAL background proves handy when assassins start showing up periodically and spraying hot lead in their direction. It is soon revealed that Harris has been targeted because brother-in-law Domenic Petralli is one of the Elder Knights of Malta's top operatives, a kind of dogmatic James Bond. All three team up to retrieve the precious relic, racing to a final, anticlimactic showdown with the Guild that's as violent as it is familiar. While Monteleone's high-energy, cartoonish narrative is sleek and diverting, it is also relentlessly silly. The prose ranges from workmanlike to downright embarrassing. Monteleone's similes are some of the worst offenders; when arch-villain Kurt Streicher begins to fall for a vivacious co-worker, the author tells us that the realization "had forced its way to the surface of his thoughts like a drowned corpse that refuses to sink."
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Although Fascisti dynamite a Portuguese chapel and its stained-glass window of the Virgin, a chunk of glass remains. On the fragment are her eyes, which are believed to occasionally disclose a strange text said to have earth-changing implications. If the eyes reveal their secret to the wrong people . . . Three-quarters of a century later, the Vatican's official commission on miracles dispatches superskilled hit men to retrieve the shard, since purloined, and before you know it, this thriller spans continents. In
Maltese Falcon-Bogart fashion, Matt, a former navy SEAL turned investigator, protects Kate Harrison when her husband and sister are brutally murdered, setting the scene for the book's international chase. Monteleone echoes not only
Raiders of the Lost Ark but also the TV hit
Alias with its "Rimbaldi artifact" that has half of the world's intelligence agents whacking the other half in a scramble to claim it and its key to ancient powers. Well, you just can't keep a good icon down, even when she's gone to pieces.
Whitney ScottCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
