The Blood of the Lamb

Rating:
Summary: Great story - slightly disappointing ending
Review: After meeting the author Tom Monteleone in NY on my honeymoon, I felt compelled to read some of his work. I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the book and read it cover to cover in about two days. I love the story line - cloning Jesus Christ from the blood of the Shroud of Turin. Fascinating stuff!! The story unwinds slowly and builds to what I thought would be some cataclysmic ending - with the end of civilization as we know it or something equally shocking. But the book goes out with more of a whimper than a scream. But overall, it is a great read. I am currently reading "The Night of Broken Souls" - another great read.

Rating:
Summary: Good book, though somewhat silly
Review: I feel that the author had an intriguing premise in cloning Jesus. However, the tangent it ended on was to me a betrayal of the promise of the book. It assumed that the only ability of a Jesus clone was "miracles" and gave little substantiation for the popularity of Father Peter. I also felt that there were a multitude of loose ends and extraneous baggage to the story. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS BOOK and am destroying my copy.

Rating:
Summary: Twisted plot and great ending!
Review: I just finished reading this great novel and, even though I thought the plot was quite ludicrous at first, I definitely got into it and I must admit it was a great pleasure to read it. The ending is superb, couldn't ask for more!

Rating:
Summary: blood of the lamb
Review: This is a prototypical high concept thriller. When thirty year old Father Peter Carenza seemingly wields lightning in fending off a mugger in Brooklyn, he is summoned to the Vatican. There we discover that, three decades ago, forces within the Vatican secured a DNA sample from the Shroud of Turin and decided to try to clone Christ. Now their dream is approaching fruition but they quickly discover that they can not control their own creation. And when Peter's behavior starts to become somewhat odd, there's little anyone can do to stop him, not even the Vatican's own ruthless assassin.

It's all exactly as contrived as it sounds, but Mr. Monteleone has fun with his premise. My main objection is that he's entirely too cynical and the portraits of religion and the religious border on bigotry. But taken on its own terms, its fairly entertaining.

GRADE: C

Rating:
Summary: contrived & cynical, but fun
Review: This is a prototypical high concept thriller. When thirty year old Father Peter Carenza seemingly wields lightning in fending off a mugger in Brooklyn, he is summoned to the Vatican. There we discover that, three decades ago, forces within the Vatican secured a DNA sample from the Shroud of Turin and decided to try to clone Christ. Now their dream is approaching fruition but they quickly discover that they can not control their own creation. And when Peter's behavior starts to become somewhat odd, there's little anyone can do to stop him, not even the Vatican's own ruthless assassin.

It's all exactly as contrived as it sounds, but Mr. Monteleone has fun with his premise. My main objection is that he's entirely too cynical and the portraits of religion and the religious border on bigotry. But taken on its own terms, its fairly entertaining.

GRADE: C

Rating:
Summary: blood of the lamb
Review: This is an interesting book with a controversal subject. It does contain many errors in facts that it uses as part of the story line, so the author should do better research ie: southern Indiana is as flat as a pool ( it actually is rolling hills, Northern Indiana is flat). May be controversal to those who are religious for it does show some of the not so pleasant sides of many types of Christian religions. Borders on medical science fiction for a basis to the story. Easy reading, not really scary, but controversal subject.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book, Great Characters, Great Story!!
Review: While cloning Jesus might seem like a great thing to be doing, on the surface, we find out that it might not be the best thing to be doing. Thomas F. Monteleone comes out with a great premise. Suppose the Vatican cloned Jesus to bring about the Second Coming. As with most any book of a religious basing, the Vatican once again becomes the bad guy. But, in truth, as the book progresses, the idea of any villian or hero beomes mixed and confused. Monteleone has done something that I absolutely love to hate. He has made the true villian of the book a most interesting and lovable character. All of the clues are put before us in this wonderful thriller, but we choose to either ignore them or interpret them in a totally different light as the story progresses. It makes for excellent storytelling when a plot that twists as much as this one does turns the characters the reader abhors into the actual "white hat good guys." It is seldom that a writer can do this in a satisfactory way, but Monteleone has pulled it off with stunning success. The book has quite a few well-developed characters, though, in truth, I would have liked to have seen about 200 more pages dedicated to the "prequel" of this story wherein we could better get to know the main character's mother, the old scientist, etc. However, as it stands, the book is quite excellent. One thing that has always bothered me about books such as this is that if the Vatican has all these wonderfully naughty people working for them, why must they constantly attack a main character head-on. Would it not be simpler to place a guy on a tower with a high-powered rifle? Of course, the story might be quite a bit shorter if such were to happen, so I will live with these delicious little thrillers as they are. An excellent book. Well-written, intricately plotted, and most certainly thoroughlt entertaining. A must-read!