This book was very strange, in fact, it was so strange that it detracted a great deal from my reading.After a bit of research, I discovered that a) this book was published originally in 2000 under the title of Kingdom Come and b) the author, Jim Hougan, along with his wife, write books under the authorship of John Case. Now John Case's stuff I can get into (well, most of it), but this book was kooky. Supposedly it explains everything from Roswell to the plethora of world-wide Virgin Mary sightings, crop circles, you name it. Hmmm. Normally I don't even think about it when fiction is a bit on the far-fetched side, but this one is WAY the hell out there. Others may like it (it has a high rating at Amazon), but I didn't care for it too much.very brief synopsis: Jack Dunphy is hired to wiretap a certain Professor of Psychology, and unfortunately, his subject turns up very dead in a most bizarre fashion. Jack, a CIA agent, is taken in for questioning by a very bizarre group of people at the Langley CIA office, and things start going downhill from there. He stumbles into some kind of massive conspiracy which the book says on the back that puts the destiny of the human race at stake, but after a few hours with the book, I still haven't figure out how.The whole thing is sort of convoluted; I liked the character of Jack Dunphy but the plot was weird.I'm afraid that this is one I won't be recommending.
What a truly terrible novel! I bought this novel as I have an interest in the conspiracy theories surrounding Mary Magdalene. Although this is fiction in genre I expected it to be a lot better than it was. Mary Magdalene wasn’t even mentioned until I was two-thirds through the book and the link made was tenuous. To me this was a “boy’s book” through and through, although a poor one at that. The writer tried to make it action in genre but failed miserably. Rather than a plot, filled with conspiracy theories and an interesting narrative, there were graphic descriptions of torture scenes. No I lie, they weren’t even that graphic, just intentionally gruesome for the point of being gruesome and overly drawn out. Unimaginative, uninteresting and unintelligent, a frankly boring read.
What do You think about The Magdalene Cipher (2006)?
This novel is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. A number of the charactershave the same names as some fairly obscure figures in the JFK assassination drama (they are entirely different people). Like it is an inside joke...The cover says "A Novel of Conspiracy." Houganhas written some non-fiction books such as 'Spooks' (about the Americanintelligence community) and 'Secret Agenda' which partially deal withvarious alleged conspiracies. The thesis of this novel is not completelynuts....The story is quite entertaining.
—David
To say that this book is a rip-off of Dans Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" is not fair, since this book was written first, and so by quite a few years. I did not like the book since I could feel no warmth for the main character, and the scenarios panned out too quickly to my liking. The open-ended feel to the ending of the book also is something I dislike in general.I normally give writers a second chance, but since I have never heard of Mr Hougan before I had to use a birthday book voucher, nor have I since, I will just say that perhaps there is a reason for than.
—Stefan Ellis
