She Treads Softly: The Lost Codex

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

The Lost Codex

The Lost Codex by Alan Jacobson

Open Road Integrated Media: 11/3/15
eBook review copy, 428 pages
ISBN-13: 9781504003636
OPSIG Team #3
http://www.alanjacobson.com/

The Lost Codex by Alan Jacobson is a highly recommended international political thriller.

The novel opens decades earlier with the unearthing of a new Dead Sea Scroll that is hinted at being world-religion-changing, the action switches to the present day and terrorists are targeting Washington. D.C.. After a bombing (and it's more complicated than that) members of the Operations support Intelligence Group (OPSIG) are called into action. The group is a team of uniquely trained covert operatives and includes FBI profiler Karen Vail (featured in another series by Jacobson), Special Forces veteran Hector DeSantos, and FBI terrorism expert Aaron Uziel.

The team discovers that there is a terrorist cell making personal vest bombs for suicide bombers. As they uncover and break up the cell in D.C., they discover more information that points to a host of other international terrorist plots that somehow tie into the ancient scrolls, two of which have gone missing. The team is asked to work with former Palestinian Mahmoud El-Fahad of the CIA, but they aren't sure they can trust him. Their search takes them to New York, London, Paris, and Tel Aviv.

The Lost Codex is really more of a political thriller with terrorists rather than a concentrated focus on the information in the ancient codex. Setting that aside, it is an outstanding tactical thriller with plenty of action. I need to warn readers that it starts out fast and then slows down as Jacobson needs to impart a whole lot of background information before moving on to the action. This information is essential to the story and covers terrorist activity. (Jacobson did his research so much of the background information he provides is true.)

Jacobson is a seasoned writer so he knows how to tell a story while keeping the plot moving and the reader's interest high. I appreciate the research he did to realistically cover terrorist activity. The Lost Codex is a great stuck-over-night-at-the-airport book. The action should keep you awake - once you get past the slow down due to the background information (get coffee here). Then there is nonstop action and enough tension to entertain you for hours. Even though this is part of a series, it works as a stand-alone novel.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Open Road Integrated Media for review purposes.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.