The Lucifer Gospel (Finn Ryan, #2) by Paul Christopher

The Lucifer Gospel (Finn Ryan, #2) Reviews

• 
  Heidi

  This book looked so promising and I enjoyed the first 3 pages of it. It's just a shame that it went on for another 354 pages after that.
  The story is not only far fetched, it's also full of political crap, has too many macho-like statements and damsel in distress stupidness all on top of the America's-the-promised-land undertone.
  Truly a waste of time!
  
• 
  Speesh

  Close, but no cigar.
  The Lucifer Gospel really could have been good, but wasn't. It was like a Dan Brown wannabe-lite. I gave it every chance, but it failed to deliver and finally, I couldn't get Clive-bloody-Cussler out of my mind.
  (A Clive Cussler book has got to be one of the worst things ever to have wasted ink and paper and, more importantly, my time).
  The majority of the plot actually seems to do its best to avoid the front and back cover's set-up entirely and involves a race across the world to find something, we're not really sure of. Even the title, or the actual item the title seems to describe, turns out not to be what you think it 'should' be, it's almost a play on words and I couldn't help but feel a little cheated.
  It all starts out alright, ticking all the right boxes for the historical/biblical mystery, thriller-genre (if there is one); there's a possibly world-changing lost treasure, a desert, a sympathetic heroine, a helpful, knowledgeable male co-lead character who can do just about everything, a mad millionaire...oh yeah, see; all going wrong, all going Clive Cussler on us already.
  The story then takes us from Egypt to Libya, across half of Europe, to the Caribbean and finally, the USA. Luckily, for each tricky situation they find themselves in, or faced with, they have the necessary experience required. The most eyebrow-raising point for me, came when they were trying to figure out how long somewhere had been deserted. They found a Coca-Cola bottle without a ring-pull opening. Fortunately, the heroine's mother had been to school with the man who invented the ring-pull system and the heroine had written a thesis on it and was thus able to estimate how old the place was...I think I finally lost touch completely with the book at that point, just as well it was towards the end or I might not have persisted.
  The Lucifer Gospel actually has some reasonably interesting characters and situations, problem is, they're mostly the supporting characters and situations that aren't the big set-pieces. It's nicely written, decently put together and generally a pleasant read. But that's the problem, it's all too slight, too inoffensive and too far from being one I can recommend.
• 
  Raven

  What on Earth did I just read!
  For anyone hoping for a storyline similar to Angels and Demons by Dan Brown you will be sorely disappointed. Whilst this was also my hope going into it and clearly the intention of the author with government conspiracies, cover-ups and the Bible not being true, it badly missed the mark.
  This book is a mess. The two main characters Finn and Hilts were repeatedly almost killed with assassination attempts which were left unexplained as to why they were attempted. They seemed to spend the entire book looking for 'Lucifer's gospel' and what this was, was never really explained. Their hunt saw them meeting up with random people that had the exact information they needed to point them in the right direction and they all listed a load of random names with no context which either ended up being referenced to later on or never spoken of again and with the lack of information given made the names easily forgotten.
  There was also some issues with the authors writing style. When it got to an action scene the characters almost start to dissociate and it's like the action is occurring in a dream or being watched from far away leaving me very confused and having to reread it to try and figure out what actually happened. Also, Paul Christopher seemed to reference other popular books, movies and other such media in what I assume was an attempt to increase the reader's enjoyment of this book by making them associate it with better things (this is becoming a more frequent occurrence with many authors) but it just seemed to random especially when he is writing about The Da Vinci Code which he was clearly trying to mimic in the first place.
  Sorry if this review is a bit of a rant but I had a lot of negative thoughts about this book.
  Overall this seemed to be a boring and very confusing history lesson that was worthless in the end.
• 
  Dean Kutzler

  This is my first Paul Christopher book, and just may be the last. The writing is spotty at times and by spotty I mean sometimes good sometimes poor. The book drones on with complication after complication, yet the complications are only chases. And unrealistic ones at times. As a writer, it pains me to give poor reviews: hence the three stars. In my opinion 3 stars is not a bad book. But, as another reviewer has said, maybe think about borrowing this from the library first. The end, which had the potential of being great, was merely lackluster. Also, towards the end, it's starting to get interesting and I was really excited for the ending, only to be letdown. That is the worst kind of let down. And also, there was way too much telling and not showing and way too much information dropping. I know the difficulties of writing a book, but I feel that you should not write a book for mere profits or potential profits only to let your readers down. That is such a disservice to the customer and a great way to ruin your career. Maybe I am being a little too harsh, and if I'm to be honest, I think I will try his best book which I am told is Michelangelo's Notebook. But in the bane of honesty I have to keep it real.
• 
  Adi

  Definitely better than
  Michelangelo's Notebook. This really felt like an action novel. It was full of excitement, danger and drama. Of course it has flaws (especially the way the main characters tackled perilous situations), however it was a nice disengaging read.
• 
  Nemo Erehwon

  
  The Lucifer Gospel by Paul Christopher
  
  An archeological dig in the sands of Libya has unearthed a lost text, allegedly written at the time of Christ's death. A recently graduated archeological illustrtor is forced to team up with a photographer/pilot to delve the mystery, which includes a secretive millionaire who seems to have ulterior motives. Their quest will take them to Italy, France, the Bahamas, and East Butt-Rutt America.
  
  I really wanted to like this book. It has all the elements I like;
  Quest for an ancient, forbidden tome? Check
  Historical oddball anecdotes? Check.
  Exotic, well-described locales I'll never visit? Check.
  Writing that displays a poetic flare? Check.
  
  But it just did not hang together.
  
  For instance, the motivations for the various characters are murky:
  Why is the attractive dig illustrator chosen for this job straight out of college?
  Why does the American millionaire want to uncover this Lucifer Gospel?
  Does he even have a master plan?
  What is the Lucifer Gospel? These questions are never fully answered. (Although, given the ending, I guess the Gospel is like the Maltese Falcon, "The stuff dreams are made of."
  
  That said, Christopher has some nice poetic turns of phrase. His descriptions of locales are vivid. Unfortunately his pacing is a little off due to occasional gaps in the narrative. For instance, the how the duo escaped from Libya is never mentioned, and their rationale for visiting "the guy who knows the answers" (all such conspiracy/adventures have them) is a little under-described.
  
  Then there is the plot. Just having a guy show up is a convenient way of moving the plot forward, rescuing it from the cliff upon which it was hanging, but it gets tedious.
  
  Then there is the ending. It was a bit of a let down. Nor horrible, just... meh.
  
  This book is almost like "The Da Vinci" code meets "Foucault's Pendulum", but not in a good way.
  
  I guess you could consider this an homage to the old international thriller/travel guide style adventures made popular by Robert Ludlum, and repopularized with additional new age conspiracy leanings by Dan Brown
  
  This book is a somewhat interesting ride, but I suspect Paul Christopher can do better.
  
• 
  Rosalyn

  Enjoyed this but was left wanting to know just what the lucifer gospel said. I appreciate that you can speculate and put your own twist on it but really to leave the main bit to your own imagination I was a tad disappointed but can see that others would love this
• 
  John Wilkes

  Good, and she got through it without falling into bed with anyone, too.
• 
  Zallee Pepper

  Nothing seemed to make any sense or have any rationale at all. Also seems to be a forum to unload about everything the author finds wrong with Egypt. To me, these adventure stories which are situated in all sorts of exotic locations should be creating an atmosphere, not spending the time describing locations in a totally unappealing kind of way.
  
  The main character doesn't hold, either. For example - maybe spoiler next...
  
  She wakes up in the middle of the night to a stranger lurking in her locked hotel room. The stranger proceeds to chat about banal stuff like bribery in Egypt. She finally interrupts the guy with something like - can you please explain to me who you are and what you're doing here. Surely a "Who the hell are you" would be more likely under the circumstances.
  
  I gave up pushing at it after about 60 pages.
• 
  M. Sprouse

  2.5
  This reminds me of the novels I use to read 15-30+ years ago. Authors like Cussler, McDermott, Du Brul, and a half dozen others. They generally followed the: link to the past, save the world by finding something in a week no one had found in several centuries. Add to that, exotic locations and well, you get the picture.
  
  This one wasn't bad, but at times it seems like the author was just writing to complete the second book of a two novel contract, though there are 4 books in this series. Often the details do not add up. For example, early in the book one of the two main characters throws a grenade at a helicopter that hasn't really threatened them and who they can't positively identify. Some of the writing is good and I felt a chemistry between Finn Ryan and Hilts. It moved quickly but the plot had so many holes, that it resembled swiss cheese.
• 
  Tory Wagner

  The Lucifer Gospel by Paul Christopher is the second in a series featuring Finn Ryan, an illustrator with an interest in archeology. When she is hired on an archeology dig to find a lost tomb of an apostle, she teams up with pilot/photographer Virgil Hilts in a grand adventure. Their quest takes them all over the globe and what they find might alter the history of the world.
• 
  Tracey

  The plot of this book has it sounded like it was going to be a good read, but sadly it’s been a kind of dull farcical thriller.
  The inclusion of a lot of actors names, has felt very namedropping and has maybe like the book less as it was too much of it!
  For me this is sadly been a disappointing conspiracy thriller that has so much potential.
• 
  Kate

  Interesting title and that's it. If you cut out the pages with archeology stuff, the book will have 3 pages to read. Then you have poor Jews and Americans - the best nation in the world. No more reading by this author.
• 
  Dave

  Although the story was enjoyable enough I found myself constantly wondering if this was a teen fiction novel rather than an adult thriller. I’ve read the full Templar series by this author and going by the evidence of this book I don’t feel the Finn Ryan series will be anything like as good.
• 
  Mark Deisenroth

  Interesting read
  
  I read.book one of this series quite some time ago and while it was ok I just couldn't completely.get into it. I decided to give book 2 a chance and really enjoyed it.
• 
  Bob Harris

  Dan Brown meet Indiana Jones in the quest for the holy grail and the Chrystal skull with some extraordinary escapes. I can only wonder what the first book was like.
  This was fun read as long as I suspended judgement and any sense of reality. It is, after all, a work of fiction.
• 
  Darinda

  The second book in the Finn Ryan series. Fun and entertaining adventure.