People in this condo building put books in the common area as a free and do-it-yourself library. One of them caught Kid’s eye: Sign of the Cross by Chris Kuzneski. She grabbed it. Several days ago, she mentioned, nonchalantly, that I could be entertained by this one. Hmm…
The library (Seattle Public Library rocks!) told me that it is the 2nd of a series. So I checked out the first: Plantation.
It turned out Chris Kuzneski self-published this book to launch his career. After Sign of the Cross became a best seller, he went back and “fixed” this one to be republished as the first of the series.
After being rejected by every agent (and publisher) on the planet, I self-published my first novel, The Plantation. Most experts thought it was a horrible decision that would ruin my writing career before it even started.
The plot was the main attraction. I expected Payne and Jones would become better developed in the later books. This makes the book difficult to review. If you are about to go on a long and lonely trip, check this book out from the library and you will be well entertained.
Naturally, I moved on to read book 2 of the series. This one was better written than Plantation. The plot unfolded at the right pace and characters developed more nicely. There was a snipe the brought a smile to me:
“Out of curiosity, how much do you know about Shakespeare?”
“More than his own mother.”
“And what about the Bible?”
“More than Dan Brown. Why do you ask?”
This book was published partially because of the success of Da Vinci Code, when religious conspiracy thriller was a genre, thankfully only briefly. Kuzneski seemed to have researched better, but the plots and scenes were really too similar for me to believe his originality and there is no way that Kuzneski can escape being compared to Dan Brown. For that, I must conclude that Dan Brown’s works were better crafted.
This is definitely a good entertainer never-the-less. My standard criteria: excellent choice to bring for a long trip.
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