Review Rating
With the October 2004 review, we began rating the books on the basis of one to four trowels;
one trowel= don’t bother, to four trowels= run right out to your local book store and buy the hard cover!
Golden Oldies - reviewing previously unreviewed books by previously reviewed “greatest hits” authors!
As we approach nearly twenty-five years of the MVAC reviews of archaeological fiction, I thought it would be fun to re-visit six of the authors whose works have been reviewed in the past. Three of these authors have sadly passed away since I first reviewed them (Margot Arnold, Lynn Hamilton, and Elizabeth Peters); two have “retired” their archaeologist protagonists, Gideon Oliver (Aaron Elkins), and Emma Fielding (Dana Cameron); and one, (Kate Ellis) continues to put DI Wesley Peterson and his friend, archaeologist Neil Watson, in harm’s way as solve contemporary crimes that have their roots in the distant past. While these authors have been reviewed previously, these books have not.
The Showstone by Glenn Cooper
Reviewed on: November 1, 2025
Severn House Publishers LTD: London
2021 (PB)
Harvard professor of archaeology and chair of the Anthropology Department Hiram Donovan was at the pinnacle of influence in the field of Biblical Archaeology as he began his fourth season of excavations at the Rabban Hurmizd Christian Monastery, just east of Mosul, Iraq, in 1989. In a section of the site carbon dated to the 11th Century, Donovan unearthed an artifact of rare workmanship: a flat, round obsidian disk some 10 centimeters in diameter. Against all protocols—and against all his personal professional standards—he surreptitiously sent the artifact to his home in Cambridge for further personal study. On a call to his wife Bess to explain the need to keep the mailed artifact securely hidden upon its arrival, Hiram learns to his great dismay that their son Cal has been dismissed from the Army for punching out his sergeant. Never one to allow misfortune to rule the day, Hiram first contacted his U.S. Senator—some guy named Ted Kennedy—to erase the “dishonorable” portion of Cal’s discharge, and then to use his considerable influence to get Cal into Harvard University!
Shortly thereafter, Hiram receives a visitor at the monastery site—a Kirkuk businessman named Mustafa Hamid—who demands the obsidian artifact. When Hiram denies any knowledge of such an artifact, Hamid kills Hiram, making it appear the archaeologist died of a tragic on-site accident. The murder, however, is witnessed by Hiram’s faithful manservant, Najib Toubi, who is sworn to absolute silence out of fear of reprisals against his family; he also denies any knowledge of the artifact. Hamid’s quest for the obsidian artifact would appear to be at a dead end.
More than two decades later, Najib makes a deathbed confession to a priest from the Chaldean Catholic Archdiocese about the events of that infamous day and the secret mailing of the artifact to Hiram’s wife in the United States. The priest reports this information to Mustafa Hamid, also a Chaldean Christian, and now a very wealthy businessman, who emigrated to New York City, virtually penniless, after the First Gulf War.
Meanwhile, Cal Donovan, the “prodigal” son of Hiram and Bess, had achieved a full professorship of religion at Harvard Divinity School, with a joint appointment in the Department of Archaeology, where he taught Biblical archaeology. Despite a reputation for hard drinking and womanizing, Cal had built a stellar reputation as a well-published scholar, inspired classroom lecturer—and was a close friend of the Pope! Cal’s rather idyllic academic existence hits an existential wall when he receives a middle of the night call from the New York City Police Department that his mother Bess has been brutally murdered. In the sad aftermath of cleaning out his mother’s Boston townhouse, he finds an unopened packaged in the back of a closet, postmarked July 1989, from Mosul, Iraq. The package contains an obsidian disk and an index card with his father’s distinctive script, reading “John Dee? British Museum/Scrying stone?” What could the Elizabethan alchemist have to do with an artifact discovered in an 11th Century Iraq?
The novel takes off a breakneck pace from here on as Cal, now less sure of the “accidental” nature of his father’s death, is stalked by shadowy figures who appear willing to go to any length to gain possession of the obsidian artifact—an artifact which may, in fact, possess mystical properties. Embedded within the story of Cal’s struggle to solve the mystery of his parents’ deaths is the history of the disk, or “showstone,” as it was known to those adepts who would “scry,” or foretell the future. The paths of Cal and Hamid appear destined to ultimately intersect and to bring about a potentially cataclysmic outcome—for Hamid’s goal is to unleash a virtual hell on earth in order to bring revenge upon those who brought grief and suffering into his life.
Glenn Cooper has crafted a fascinating adventure/thriller that features a plot that is complex and challenging and a protagonist who is reluctantly heroic while at the same time deeply flawed. Four trowels for this entry in the excellent Cal Donovan series.
