Chapter and not worse

All the world’s a-rage for The Da Vinci Code. When I read it a couple of years ago, I was held absorbed until the last sentence, which was a pleasure after all the dreary, badly-written, over-serious, boring fiction I had been battling my way through. It is not high literature, in no way enduring or even too original, but it is a good, racy, fun read. And, best of all, it wanders through the Louvre and parts of Paris, a museum I enjoy being in and a city I am fairly familiar with. From there, I slid into Angels and Demons, the book that precedes its bestselling sibling, but made its noise only after The Da Vinci Code had set the bells ringing for Dan Brown. Again, it is set in familiar territory, with a mystery set in the guarded precincts of the laboratory complex that is CERN, Geneva, and then the tiny principality of the Vatican City, nestled in the heart of Rome. The hero, Robert Langdon, investigates the mystery and leaves just enough of it unknown for readers to argue about and the author to write his next book!

But Dan Brown is not the populist mystery master, not for me, at least. Better than The Da Vinci Code is a more obscure work called The Eight, by Katherine Neville. This one is a fabulous adventure that swings across time, from before the French Revolution to Russia during the end of the reign of Catherine the Great and the start of to-be-tsar Alexander’s greatness, to New York in the 80s. The feisty young heroine travels from the Great Apple to Algeria to the depths of the Sahara, retracing the footsteps of a long-ago protector of a fabulous secret. There is history, romance, religion, belief and a great deal of political drama, with magic thrown in to spice up a very special potion. Neville has also written A Calculated Risk, a complex tale of grand theft involving New York’s financial markets. While this is simpler than The Eight, it has villains as villainous, a star who is young, female and brilliant and a love story that wakens a longing in all of us for one such of our own! The author’s most recent book is The Magic Circle, which is a convoluted adventure focussing in a shadowy way on the life and times of Adolf Hitler. This happens via the story of a young woman who, in the process of trying to come to terms with her beloved cousin’s death, discovers the bewildering maze of her family relationships, even as she finds out that her cousin is not, after all, dead.

Confused? So was I, at first reading. It has taken me many re-reads to explore Neville’s books, sifting through a new and unusual layer each time. Now her work is a sort of benchmark for me, a level that others need to live up to, mixed metaphors and all. Will I find more? Until her next, reportedly set in the art world, is ready, I keep reading….