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THE GENESIS SECRET
By: Tom Knox
Viking Penguin: New York
2009 (HC)
First-time novelist Tom Knox has written one of the
best archaeology thrillers I’ve read in many a year! The Genesis Secret
is a tightly-written and intelligent novel that combines archaeological fact
and fiction with edge-of-your-seat excitement and drama. It is not a novel
for every reader as Knox does not hold back in depicting scenes of violence
and acts of depraved behavior by his loathsome villain. The scenes are
quite graphic and may even be gratuitous at times, but this is a thrilling
journey that invites us to join.
For more than half of the book’s 369 pages, two plot
lines emerge and seem to be quite unrelated. In London, Inspector Mark
Forrester of New Scotland Yard investigates the brutalization of an elderly
watchman at the Benjamin Franklin House museum. The old man has been left
to die, his tongue cut out, his hair cut off, and twin stars of David carved
into his chest. Along with the assault, signs of excavation in the museum
cellars indicate that the attackers were hunting for something buried in the
historic building. Further investigations lead Forrester to a similar crime
committed in the Isle of Man—the brutal murder of a man with a Star of David
carved in his chest—and again, signs of digging. Forrester’s further
researches lead him to the conclusion that he may be on the trail of some
young, upscale deviants who practice torture and human sacrifice—but to what
ends? Subtle clues point to the possibility that these monsters are somehow
following in the footsteps of the 18th Century Hellfire Club—a
collection of intellectuals, aristocrats, government leaders and
freethinkers (including Benjamin Franklin), who sought the secrets of
ancient knowledge and mysteries, including the occult.
The second plot line follows the odyssey of
American-born, The Times of London journalist Rob Luttrell, who is
assigned—as a break from his duties as war correspondent in violence-ridden
Iraq—to write a feature story on the German-led archaeological excavation at
Gobekli Tepe, in Kurdish southeastern Turkey. Gobekli Tepe is a
fascinating site—identified as the oldest yet known village in human
history, dating back some 10-12,000 years. It is an urban center, complete
with what is thought to be a ritual or perhaps a funerary center, created by
a hunter-gatherer culture that had no pottery, no metallurgy and no
agriculture. Adding to the mystery of Gobekli Tepe are the telltale signs
in the archaeological record that the entire site was purposefully
buried—literally entombed—about 8,000 years ago. In later times, the area
was inhabited by Akkadians, Sumerians and Hittites—and the nearby modern
Turkish town of Sanliurfa is thought by many scholars as the original site
of Ur and nearby Haran, the home of the Biblical patriarch Abraham and the
site of the near-sacrifice of his son, Isaac.
Rob is clearly fascinated by the work being done by
German archaeologist Franz Breitner and his lovely assistant,
osteoarchaeologist Christine Meyer. It doesn’t take the reader long to
realize Luttrell’s interest in Christine may go well beyond her expertise in
ancient burials and skeletons! Nevertheless, Rob writes his story and is
making preparations to leave (reluctantly) when Franz Breitner is tragically
killed and Christine convinces Rob that it is murder rather than accidental
death that ended the archaeologist’s life. She reveals to Rob that she
knows Breitner had been conducting clandestine excavations under cover of
night and further believed, based upon encoded entries in his journal, that
his secret finds were being hidden in the scruffy little museum in Haran and
that Breitner believed Gobekli Tepe may have been the allegorical foundation
for the Biblical Garden of Eden found in Genesis.
The bewildering array of artifacts Rob and Christine
find in Haran lead Christine to believe that Gobekli Tepe, rather than a
Garden of Eden, may have been the source or place of origin for torture,
mutilation and human sacrifice playing such a central role in many ancient
Levantine religions. Their investigations lead them to seeking further
insight and wisdom from the Yezidi, adherents to an ancient syncretic
religion that includes elements of Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, and
Zoroastrianism—a group persecuted by both Muslims and Christians for
purportedly worshipping Satan.
It is at this point that the two separate threads of
the novel begin to converge and meet at a violent and bloody denouement—and
we are at last made privy to the “Genesis Secret.”
As stated earlier, The Genesis Secret is a
well-written, tightly plotted thriller that succeeds in great part by the
use Tom Knox makes of the real historical and archaeological record, and
then spinning an imaginative “what-if” tale. Gobekli Tepe is in fact
an important archaeological site in Turkey and may very well provide great
insights into the little-known cultures that preceded the Akkadian,
Sumerians, Canaanites, etc. The Hellfire Club was a gathering of 18th
Century intellectuals who dabbled in subjects arcane as well as
philosophical and scientific. And the Yezidi is an ancient cult that
still exists in the Near East, and most recently has found protection from
the enmity of their Islamic and Christian neighbors by U.S. military forces
in northern Iraq.
Again—perhaps not a novel for everyone, but for
those who choose to read it, I believe you will be very satisfied with this
tale of high adventure. Four Trowels for Tom Knox’s first novel—may he
write many more!
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