The Antiquities Dealer by Ed ProtzelMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Perfectly balanced in Sci-Fi meets reality, the plot is by far a 5 out of 5. The premise is that a scientist is working on a cloning program and he needs the crucifixion nail to create another Jesus, but as you can imagine, it's not easy to obtain. The person who had it was murdered and they must decipher a code to locate where he hid it. This book has action, adventure, suspense, mystery, and a little bit of romance. It's fantastic! It's like Indiana Jones meets The Da Vinci Code.
If the plot was the only thing I was reviewing, I would stop here and give this a 5 star review. However, I would be remiss to ignore the editing. I would love for the author to sit with a good editor and work out some of the kinks in the book. This book is really good, but with the help of a good editor, it could be really great! It could even turn into the next big Indiana Jones type series. I could see it now - David Greenberg and The Holy Nail.
Some of the editing issues are little. I would suggest adding the POV person with the chapter titles, because it's not always clear who is talking. I know with some authors they do this by design for parts where we are meant to be guessing, but if it's not done by design, there needs to be better acknowledgement of who is talking to us in the other chapters. Otherwise readers become frustrated with turning pages to determine who the main character is when it's constantly switching.
Other items are larger. I really struggled with what year it was and what age the characters were. Maybe I missed it early in the book, but I knew it was supposed to be newer, because there were cell phones and other technology that's newer. Also, David was divorced twice and had graduated college, but Miriam wanted to have another child, so I would assume they were younger than 40. Perhaps they were around 35? That seems awfully young to be divorced twice, but not impossible.
Another reason I struggled with the year was because a lot of the dialogue felt older. It was like dialogue I would be reading from a book that's a few decades ago. Especially among David and his friends. David's friends...I was totally confused every time Finkel and Daddy were involved. Their dialogue often left me scratching my head and led to the majority of the confusion about which decade it was. They seemed like they were relics themselves.
Finally, David...oh David. You had a lot of monologues. I'm okay with monologues if it helps us explore the character and what they're feeling. I thought somewhere in the book it was mentioned that David is an atheist. I believe he was Jewish by blood, but didn't share those beliefs. I don't know too many atheists, which is fine, but I question how many atheists monologue about ancient gods. There were quite a few references to different mythologies, which seemed odd of an atheist. That could be a bad perception on my part, but it seemed odd.
Then there was the romance. It's been a long time since I reviewed a fade to black book. So, if you're looking for hard core sex scenes, this isn't the right book for you. If you're looking for a few mildly romantic moments overshadowed by a lot of action, adventure, and mystery, then read this one!
Overall, I would have given this book 3.5 stars if that was possible. In cases where I want to give half stars, I round up for the author's benefit. I hope the author works with an editor to clean up some of the book that could shine more with some help. If he does, then this has a strong chance of being picked up and mainstreamed. It has a really solid base with a lot of potential!
**I was provided a copy of this book by the author to review**
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