The Genesis Secret

February 9, 2009
Knox's well-paced debut offers some new wrinkles on the theme of the archeological discovery that will change the course of human history. British reporter Rob Luttrell, who barely survived a suicide bomber's attack in Iraq, is hoping to take things easy, but his new assignment, to cover a dig in Turkish Kurdistan, proves anything but routine. German archeologist Franz Breitner has found evidence of buildings at the site known as Gobekli Tepe that appear to be 10,000 to 11,000 years old, 5,000 years earlier than any similar structure. The excavation has aroused the ire of the locals, who place an ancient Aramaic curse on those working there. It may be no accident when Breitner is impaled on a pole. Luttrell teams with an attractive biological anthropologist, Christine Meyer, to solve the mystery of the site, which may be where the Garden of Eden was located. Readers will hope to see more such offbeat thrillers from Knox, the pseudonym of London journalist Sean Thomas.

April 1, 2009
A newspaper reporter covering an archaeological dig must help catch a gang committing a string of grisly murders in Knox's debut thriller.

Rob Luttrell is getting bored in Tel Aviv. Oh, it was nice of his editor in London to give him time off to recover from witnessing a suicide bombing in Baghdad, but now he's ready to get back to work. Luckily, he soon receives a new, more relaxed assignment: see what's happening at Gobekli Tepe, an archaeological site in Kurdish Turkey, where German archaeologist Franz Breitner thinks he's uncovering an ancient temple. Rob isn't on the scene for long before he notices that the locals aren't very welcoming to the archaeological team, which includes an osteoarchaeologist named Christine Meyer whom the divorced journalist finds quite appealing. The Kurds, Rob learns, resent the secrecy surrounding a dig they think could enrich their impoverished area with tourism. When Breitner falls to his death under suspicious circumstances, the Turkish police send Rob and Christine packing, allegedly for their safety. Meanwhile, back in England, Scotland Yard DCI Forrester is investigating a series of grisly murders that seem somehow linked to human sacrifice. Naturally, these two story lines collide, leaving Rob, Christine and his daughter Lizzie caught between a ruthless gang of killers and the ancient knowledge they seek. The chapters describing Luttrell's initial sojourn in Kurdistan are excellent: moody and tense, subtly evoking a dark and ancient terror that lurks just out of sight. Regrettably, the dread so masterfully captured at first eventually gives way to a cartoonish series of shortcuts and outrageous coincidences. The end result is painfully disappointing, all the more so because the author has shown himself capable of much better. With a little more work, Knox could have produced an entire book as gripping as its early pages.

A well-wrought premise, undone by a series of lazy choices.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

March 15, 2009
Readers who enjoy the suspense novels of Raymond Khoury and Julia Navarro may think this is one stamped from that die; they will probably be disappointed. Knox (the pseudonym of British author Sean Thomas) introduces us to war reporter Rob Luttrell, a bit shell-shocked from his eyewitness coverage of suicide bombings in Baghdad. To help him recover, his editor sends Rob to write a relaxing "National Geographic"-like spread on an archaeological dig in Kurdistan. How much trouble can Rob get into? Plenty! He stumbles upon practitioners of an ancient quasi-demonic religion protecting the site and a wealthy, insane British schoolboy whose family legacy charges him with the protection of certain buried "secrets." This lunatic and his cadre wreak havoc in England and abroad, perpetrating heinous, grisly, and rather literary murders that scream horror, not suspense/thriller. The body count is high, and characters to whom we warmed are brutalized. Religion, too, is debunked. The titular "secret" is overplayed all the way to the tidy, happy ending. Recommended for large popular fiction collections with generous budgets.Laura A.B. Cifelli, Ft. Myers-Lee Cty. P.L., FL

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