The Nostradamus Prophecies

October 18, 2010
The murder in Paris of a Gypsy man who may know the whereabouts of Nostradamus's lost prophecies propels this so-so thriller, the first in a trilogy, from Nostradamus expert Reading (Nostradamus: The Top 100 Prophecies). American writer Adam Sabir, the prime murder suspect, soon finds himself on the run through France and Spain, accompanied by the dead man's sister, a Gypsy witch, in a search for prophecies left in the Gypsies' care by Nostradamus centuries earlier. In hot pursuit is Achor Bale, an assassin with "freakishly clotted eyes" who will let nothing stand in his way to secure possession of the hidden secrets and who plays stalking horse for French police captain Joris Calque, who thinks Sabir is innocent. Readers will find all the usual Da Vinci Code elements—a remorseless hunter, forgotten knowledge, ancient conspiracies, malevolent cults, a steeple chase from clue to clue. Only the atypically insightful and competent Calque offers respite from an entirely predictable variation on a familiar theme.

October 15, 2010

A struggling writer and a mysterious assassin take opposing sides in a race to discover a lost prophecy.

This European bestseller by Nostradamus expert Reading (The Complete Prophecies of Nostradamus, 2009, etc.) delves deep into the history of the famous French seer. But the novel's literary merit and historical assessment don't come at the cost of suspense and action. The novel opens in Paris, where Reading's fictional doppelgänger—American writer Adam Sabir—is chasing down a flimsy Internet lead. A gypsy con artist and drug addict named Babel is teasing Sabir that he has possession of the lost prophecies of Michel de Nostradame, who completed 942 out of a planned 1,000 quatrains of his predictions. But before Sabir can ferret out the truth, the gypsy slices open his hand and marks Adam's head with a bloody print. Following Babel's mysterious clues—"Two words. Remember them. Samois. Chris."—Sabir makes his way to Samois-sur-Seine, where he meets the Manouche gypsy tribe that protects their own. Babel, meanwhile, has been brutally murdered by the villainous Achor Bale, an assassin trained by his mother to protect the history that Nostradamus predicted. His mysterious organization is Corpus Maleficus, a cult trying to protect a Third Antichrist, a malevolent figure following Napoleon and Hitler. Hot on the trail of both is Joris Calque, a veteran police officer who's trying to flush out the American fugitive and the body count from marking all of Europe. In a fascinating and tense exchange, Sabir is forced to undergo a risky gypsy trial called a Kriss, after which he finds himself responsible for Yola Semana, Babel's unmarried sister. Together, Yola and Sabir head out across Europe to ferret out clues from a series of Black Madonna statues located in Europe's most exotic cities, all while fleeing the deadly advances of Achor Bale.

While the story is more than satisfying for fans of the historical conspiracy game, Reading brings more nuance, substance and action to his well-told tale than one might expect.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 1, 2010
Already a best-seller in the UK (where its sequel, The Mayan Codex, has already been published), this fast-paced novel should appeal to fans of thrillers involving ancient mysteries and modern-day conspiracies. The premise: Nostradamus, the sixteenth-century prophet, wrote 1,000 quatrains predicting various future events, but only 942 survived. Or so history said; now it appears that the lost quatrains have resurfaced. And two very different men are hot on their trail: Adam Sabir, writer of a popular book about Nostradamus (and desperately in need of a follow-up hit), and Achor Bale, who belongs to an ancient society (guardians of the Three Antichrists prophesied by Nostradamus: Napoleon, Hitler, and their as-yet-unknown successor). This is an exciting thriller, with two well-drawn central characters and plenty of action. Reading, author of a few nonfiction books about Nostradamus, is a talented storyteller. The book is refreshingly free of the cluttered dialogue and lengthy expository passages that can bring any novelbut especially one about ancient mysteriesto a screeching halt. A definite winner.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)