The Sign
by: Raymond Khoury
Published by: Dutton
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Reviewed by Diane Snyder
Technology, religion, and an overwhelming lust for power among a few, create havoc worldwide. Playing with people and events–as if they are chess pieces to upset an existing mind-set and replace it with one more easily manipulated–sets this exciting and tense thriller in motion.
A sudden shimmering phenomena hovers in the sky in Antarctica as a TV crew with a well-known anchorwoman, Gracie Logan, is filming the breaking off of an ice mass. All the experts aboard the ship are bewildered by the sight and have no explanations, but the event is broadcast live around the world. As the world audience and those aboard the research ship watch, dumbstruck, the cloud of light morphs into a symbol or sign before vanishing from the sky.
After the sign vanishes, anchorwoman Gracie receives a strange phone call from a monk in Egypt, telling her to come immediately to the Deir Al-Suryan monastery. For months a well-known monk, Father Jerome, has been drawing the symbol on the walls of a cave where he has secluded himself for months. Is this a sign from God or an almost technically impossible hoax?
Gracie rushes to Egypt for what seems to be the “scoop” of her career. At the same time, Matt Sherwood, an ex-con now living in Boston, Massachusetts, is being told by his brother’s friend that his brother may really be alive after being thought dead for two years–and the recent phenomena and sign are connected to his disappearance.
The author grabs your attention even in the Prologue. Author Rhoury likes to begin his thrillers with shock and drama, for instance the awesome early chapter of his first novel, The Last Templar. However this story jumps from place to place and persons to persons so much in the beginning that the tension begins to wane. However, after he brings the plot all together, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle falling into place, the action and tension pick up again very quickly.
When a smart ambitious anchorwoman with pull in the right places teams up with the street-smart ex-con, things start smoking.
Armchair Interviews agrees.
Author’s Web site: http://www.RaymondKhoury.com
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