In Tongues of the Dead - a review

First of all, I'd like to welcome my two newest followers. One is my brother, the Sail doctor. He's not a real doctor, but I'm sure he's played at being one at one time or another. The other is Lori, who is an extremely cool person that I'm getting to know better. I'm a firm believer that people come into your lives for a reason, and tho i don't know why exactly i know her yet, I'm sure the reason will make itself known sooner or later.

Secondly, I just love the way that the internets seem to read my mind, or know what I'm doing at any point in time. Take this XKCD comic for example. Here i was, merrily going along, reading this book, and i came across that comic. Talk about synchronicity. The connection to the two will become clear as you read along.

Faithful readers (if i may be so bold as to use that familiarity) will remember that, a few posts back, i told you about the Shelf Monkey thing going on, which I came to know because of my fascination with Canadian author Corey Redekop. So, I, being the lover of free stuff that I am, decided to contact ECW Press and become a Shelf Monkey.

I chose my favourite genres from a list that ECW supplied me, and then I received an email from Jennifer, telling me that my first book was on the way. (Can i just say how much i love getting things in the mail that aren't bills?)

So, here i am, holding up my end of the bargain. Here goes the review.
These are excerpts from the ECW Press website:

"In the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University there lies a 400-year-old document that no one has been able to decipher. Twenty years ago the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) secretly placed a guard to watch over the document.

The guard, Father Ronald McCallum, is overwhelmed when an autistic child visiting the library appears to read from the manuscript’s pages... Father Benicio Valori, priest and clinical psychologist, is sent halfway around the world to verify the boy’s ability to read the manuscript.

...It becomes apparent the Vatican has sent others to investigate with orders to stop at nothing from keeping the document’s secrets from being exposed. Fearing for the child’s life, Benicio flees the country to Canada and trusted friend and psychologist, Dr. Jake Tunnel.

Despite being distraught by the diagnosis of a brain tumor in his five-year-old son, Jake reluctantly agrees to help his old friend... Soon he and Benicio begin to unveil the biblical origins of the Voynich manuscript and why this autistic child can read it.

They realize that the Voynich Manuscript is the bible of the Nephilim – soulless beings created by the crossbreeding of angels and humans, and despised by God. The angels responsible for their creation were banished from heaven and the monstrous offspring were thought to be destroyed by the flood of Noah’s time..."

Ok, so my first impression was that I really liked the premise of the book. The Voynich Manuscript actually exists, and the Nephilim are in the bible. I did feel that it falls into that whole Dan Brown 'the catholic church is inherently evil and corrupt' kind of deal. Frankly, that has been a little overdone lately.

The book is described as fast-paced and filled with action, which it is. There are many scenes when I was caught up, reading quickly along with the action, and it did hold my interest during those parts.

I feel that the characters could have been a bit more real. Benicio Valori, who is the protagonist of the book, emigrated to Canada from Italy with his parents, when he was a teenager. Throughout the book, he would toss in phrases in Italian, which i felt was a bit affected. It just didn't ring true, to me. Jake is well described, he's a psychologist, and the descriptions of his interactions with, and his feelings about his patients are well done. He and his family are dealing with the illness of his son, and the scenes involving that conflict are well written.

There was a scene in which Benicio is taking the autistic boy, Matthew, across the border. Benicio knew this would be a problem, the boy was not related to him, Matthew did not speak, it was just an all around problem. He thinks through the problem, as they sit at the side of the road near the border. "Then Benicio noticed a lane dedicated to truckers, extra-wide and almost hidden by a parade of semitrailers. It gave him an idea." He gets Matthew out of the car, they have an interaction with one of the other drivers, and then Benicio decides to call his friend Jake Tunnel for help. The next scene that we read about it is with Jake's family, and then all of a sudden "Benicio turned and looked down the road to New Brunswick." What?? How'd they get across the border? It almost feels like the author stepped away from that scene for a bit to figure it out, then never went back to solve that problem. Maybe its just one scene in an otherwise well written book, but it bothered me. It felt unfinished.

It is well written. The author, Brad Kelln is a forensic psychologist in Halifax, he's a special consultant on hostage negotiation to the Halifax Regional Police and the RCMP. He's an intelligent man, that comes across in his writing. If you are a fan of Dan Brown, and that genre, you'll enjoy this book.

Trying to keep up to date. And shelf monkeys

Please excuse me for not updating sooner. I got a new laptop, and I can't get the hang of editing on it. I think i need to change my settings or something, and, frankly, i need some more nerdiness before i can do that.

So, on to the blogginess of it all.Well, holy cow. I have eight Followers. That's just crazy. I think that i can thank my friend Paul Michael Murphy (no relation) for most of them. He posted about my blog on his blog, and, well, you know what happens when blogs get together. It`s bloggariffic. It`s PMM`s goal to take over the webosphere. Frankly, he can have that goal. Mine is more simple, i just need an outlet for all of this thinking that I do.

So, thank you, Followers of mine. Including my sister, Mary Ellen. Special kudos to Big Plain V, who was not only my fifth follower, but made the fifth comment. For that, he gets a fifth of gin. Or Beethoven`s fifth. Or something like that. Check your mail, Big V. Shawn, thanks for following. I know you're probably thinking "when will she blog about the chick using the laptop in the middle of the main street?". I can only talk about the things i see, dude. Thank you to all of my followers. Again. I really appreciate your support. You'll get a list of your initiation tasks later. Don't worry, only a couple of them involve tattoos and piercings.

The title of this post includes the phrase "shelf monkeys", which probably requires a little explanation. There`s this Canadian author (cuz i`m all about canadians)Corey Redekop . He wrote a book called `Shelf Monkey`, which is also the name of his blog. Shelf Monkey is really, really good, you should definitely read it. I`m wondering if i should do a review of that book, but my reading of the book predates my blog... I think i will, anyway, but i need to look over it again to refresh my memory with the details.

Anyway. On Corey`s blog, he talked about his publisher ECW Press, giving away free books. (followers, please note, i`m always up for a free book)(just as an aside, i`m sitting with my back to a window, and there`s a bird in my eavestrough, tossing out debris. It`s kind of freaking me out. I don`t really like birds)

ok... back on track. ECW Press giving away free books. Yeah, they said they would, and they did. You just have to register as a shelf monkey, and promise to do some sort of review, either on Amazon, or other places, or on your own blog... So, this week, in the mail i received a copy of `Ìn Tongues of the Dead`, by Brad Kelln. I`m finishing up a book now (Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels), but i`ll get to this one after that. So many books, so little time.


Just some notes for people who aren't regular blog readers. In order to comment on my blog (please comment, i thrive on feedback), take note of the words at the bottom of my writing. It will say "0 comments" (or another number, depending on how many people have commented). Just click on that, and it will open up a thingy where you can make your comments. If you post as anonymous, just leave your first name after your post, that way i can answer you if you have any questions.


See you soon. (i should probably come up with some sort of witty catch phrase. I'll get on that)