Rating: 
Summary: The leaner, the better
Review: This novel contains all the things that scare us all in real life: North Korea, Cult, Epidemics, a potential war, etc. What we now know about the situation in North Korea and SARS, for instance, adds more vivideness and reality to this story.
With all those factors, this book could have been more stimulating if the author was more focused on collaborating the main story line, instead of going here and there. I got lost in the middle of the story. It also takes several chapters initially before warming up. The 375 pages could have been trimmed down to about 300 pages with more focused writing.
Rating: 
Summary: Scientology Inc. In Fiction
Review: While waiting for a freight train on the Afton bridge (it's a long story), I read an excellent Fiction Suspense novel written by a New York _Times_ best selling author.The novel is about a psychotic killer "cult" called "The Temple of Light" that is bent upon eradicating surplus humans from the planet, to "restore balance" to nature. "Cult" is in quotes because the organization merely uses the cloak of "religion" to mask its activities and to use "religion" as a [tool] against criticism--- it is not actually a religion. Sounds just like [a religion], eh? ... Whenever the author used the words "church" and "religion" he put them in quotes. The "cult" had a privately owned ship, upon which a few "members" mysteriously died. The main character of the novel remarked that investigators "took their (the "cult's") word for how they died," and no actual investigation of those deaths occurred. When the parents of one of the dead started their own investigation, they were harassed, intimidated, and (as the only solution left) murdered by the "cult" to finally shut them up. This not only ended the investigation, but also kept the other parents of dead "members" from seeking their own investigations.... By the middle of the book I had noticed dozens of [a religion's] parallels. I thought that criminal enterprises which use thought reform and mind control most probably have many similarities, so I did not make too much of the parallels. Until, that is, I read the name of the department in charge of The Temple's crimes such as murder, kidnapping, extortion, intimidation, witness tampering, assault, intelligence gathering---- The book calls this department of the "Temple of Light" the Office of Special Affairs! No, really. As the book progressed, so did the author's use of real-life [religious organization's] OSA activities. In very many places, the author obviously researched [the religious group] on the Internet, as real-life OSA crimes and human rights abuses were fictionalized and added to the book. The inclusions go from the main character has his trash collected by The Temple Of Light, to having the Temple kill the dog of a human rights activist. (And then suing the human rights activist for "libel" when he complained.) The main character's computer equipment, diskettes, and printouts were also stolen by OSA. Anyone who criticized The Temple of Light's crimes was called by The Office of Special Affairs in the newspapers a "religious bigot." When some of the members of the Temple committed murder and fled to Cuba, they insisted that they fled to Cuba because the USA government was "religiously persecuting" them. Consider pages 258, 259, and 260: These three pages outline in a fictionalized form the actual [religious organization] OSA's techniques used against human rights activists in real life: harassment; "third-partying;" nuisance phone calls; going to the activist's place of employment and slandering him; framing him for child molestation; stalking; bugging his telephone; framing (and getting charged!) for a "hate crime;" signing him up for various [sexual] publications.... typical [religious organization] crimes and human rights abuses. There's even a criminal Private Investigator working for The Temple, running around assaulting and kidnapping the "enemies" of the Temple. The funny thing is, if I had not studied [the religious organization] over the past seven years, all of this would have just been "pure fiction" to me. It is rooted deeply in fact, with the title "Temple of Light" replacing "Scientology Inc."[the religious organization] it, the book is a good read. The book also mentioned John Travolta! And called various Temple franchises "Orgs."
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