Joel Rosenberg so perfectly combines the style of Tom Clancy, Dan Brown and La Haye/Jenkins that it is absolutely irresistible. The characters are so familiar and comfortable, the plot is terse and believable, and the book is great fun. He is one of the few authors (K. A. Applegate and Eoin Colfer being others) that I have trouble putting down at 2 am (no trouble at 3 am). The books are actually detrimental to my productivity!

And it’s got a tie-in to church! The Sunday after finishing the book, my pastor mentioned a teaching style of Jesus and other rabbi’s of 30 A.D. called remez. The principle is to read passages of the Old Testament in parts without explaining what was missing. It assumes that the audience of the sermon/lecture knows the Old Testament well enough to know what was missing and THAT was the thrust of the lecture/sermon. While not mentioned by name, this concept played heavily into the book and it was awesome to see such immaculate detail in Rosenberg’s research.

There were two very intriguing religious ideas that I was particularly drawn to.  The first concerned the Antichrist and the End Times.  Essentially, the devil doesn’t know when Jesus is coming back, so he has had an Antichrist ready to fulfill prophesy in every era (page 156).  The second was a compelling heart-to-heart conversation between a Jew and a Christian about what it’s like to follow God, where if you don’t become a true follower and learn to speak His language, you’ll completely miss what he’s saying (page 288).  It was just a really interesting way of putting it and I was absolutely fascinated.

Finished on September 4th, 2008

Who is the more admirable character, the actress Laura Keene or the assassin’s sister, Asia Booth Clarke?

Before reading this book, I would have had no idea how to answer this question, but now I know all this and more and am very glad to have read this book.

I first heard about the book as a potential film project that Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford were looking at, but didn’t pick up the book until a couple of months ago. It reads very easily and is the exciting and compelling true life mystery of the hunt for John Wilkes Booth after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Packed full of history and an incredibly petty and sordid supporting cast (especially on the Union side), this book was absolutely delightful.

What was especially nice in my edition of the book was the interview with the author and the questions in the back like the one above. In my opinion, Asia Booth Clarke is more admirable than Laura Keene. Laura Keene wove her way into the assassination legacy by resting Lincoln’s head in her lap shortly after the assassination (despite advice to the contrary from doctors on the scene, just to get Lincoln’s brain matter on her dress). Asia Booth Clarke (Wilkes’ sister) spent her lifetime trying to redeem her brother…not for the act he committed, but as a true Christian hating the sin (the assassination) and not the sinner (her misguided brother).

The other interesting question was: Is Thomas Jones, the rebel river ghost, to be admired for his code of honor or condemned for his aid to the assassin?

And like a true Republican Southerner, I once again side with the South on this question. I think Thomas Jones, who risked his life to get Wilkes across the Potomac from Maryland to Virginia, is to be admired for maintaining his Southern code of honor and protecting Wilkes not because of his crime (even in spite of it), but because Wilkes was a Southern patriot and true believer in the cause (even if it is misguided, sticking to your belief is an admirable and respectable quality).