James Becker's The First Apostle is a work of mystery fiction in the vein of Dan Brown's work. Though I enjoyed this book, I would have to admit that I find Brown's work to be more compelling to read. They both suffer from the tendency to make characters, especially villains, one dimensional or caricatures. Once again, the villain is the Catholic Church, who is in league with La Cosa Nostra in this particular tale. Like Brown, Becker attempts to give his work a veneer of historical accuracy, but he does admit that much of his tale is speculative. Without trying to give away too much of the plot, Becker's work is premised on the work of historian Joseph Atwill's Caesar's Messiah. While Becker is hypercritical of the legacy of the Catholic Church, he seems to be willing to accept Atwill's work at face value, though most mainstream historians do not give much credence to Atwill's thesis. With a title like, The First Apostle, most readers would likely realize that within a Christian context, this is a work related to the life of Paul of Tarsus, known to some as Saint Paul.
The story begins with an accidental discovery of a Latin inscription "HIC VANDICI LATITANT", which translates into English as "Here lie the liars."A young British couple, Mark and Jackie Hampton, discover this inscription when they are remodeling their home in Italy. After a seemingly innocuous Internet search by Jackie to learn more about this cryptic message, the story begins in earnest. The Church and its associates are alerted to this search and trace it back to the Hampton's home. Jackie ends up dead. One of their close friends, Chris Bronson, who happens to be an English police officer comes to help Mark deal with the logistics of Angela's death and discovers a possible connection to Jackie's death and this inscription.
Within the Vatican, a Cardinal Vertutti is alerted when the Vatican's Italian "partner", La Cosa Nostra learns of this inscription. This inscription is related to the Vitalian Codex, an important and secret document that is lacked in the Apostolic Penitentiary, which is one of the most secretive and secure parts of the Vatican Library. This codex contains information about the primary object of these searches, the Exomologesis.
I wonder if there is a Library of Congress classification for fiction based on various conspiracies regarding the Catholic Church, the life, death, or possible marriage of Jesus, and assorted other figures like Peter and Paul. All it takes is some historical vestige of an event or person and anything that is shady or incomplete can be accounted for by appeal to the Vatican Library, Opus Dei, or some other sinister wing of the Catholic Church. I suppose I should disclose that I am a lifelong and practicing Roman Catholic, but I think my previous reviews show that I am pretty fair in my criticism of abuses of the Catholic Church past and present.
Back to the story, once Chris Bronson begins to put the pieces together, the heat is turned up by his pursuers, who are truly pursuing information about the "liars" rather than Bronson and Hampton. When Bronson realizes that he is out of his element with this historical and archaeological puzzle, he turns to the one person he knows who might be able to help- his ex-wife, Angela. Angela works at the British Museum. Once she receives pictures from Chris of the inscription, she forwards these to a colleague, Jeremy Goldman who is a specialist in ancient languages.
Naturally, the Mafia is watching Bronson's every move, even in cyberspace, so no one is safe, especially Bronson and his ex-wife. At this point, the book turns rather formulaic as the Bronsons race to solve the mystery, while the bad guys try to do the same and to tie up loose ends as well.
The writing is good and Becker tells a fine story. The narrative goes from the present day to first century Rome through the tragic fate of the Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade before returning to the present with the frantic search for the liars in the hills on the outskirts of Rome.
If you like mystery thrillers with a historical twist, I think you might enjoy The First Apostle despite Becker's strong antipathy for the Roman Catholic Church and his skepticism regarding the historical origins of Christianity.
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