Life...The Vivere

ARTFUL READERS CLUB

THE QUEST by Nelson DeMille

January 31, 2014

Welcome to my first review for 2014! Nothing like starting with a blockbuster, but, sadly, not as much of a blockbuster as many of DeMille's other tales!

THE QUEST is a rewrite of a book DeMille wrote four decades ago, but the theme is timeless... a search for the Holy Grail. Interesting to note that he wrote this book long before any of the Indiana Jones movies or any of the similarly themed novels like The Da Vinci Code were conceived. He wrote it before stories about treasure hunting for ancient objects or deciphering medieval mysteries became a cliché.  This is a story about a trio (2 journalists and a photographer) that goes to the jungles of Ethiopia to cover the fighting between rebels and Haile Selassie loyalists, but ends up searching for The Holy Grail.

There's a lot to like here...there are Indochina and post World War II Soviet prison camps that play a role in the development of the two male journalists; there's a female photographer that's  sexy,  beautiful and   mysterious, putting herself in harm's way; there's a great description of a terrible yet historically significant time that shows the depravity of human nature... and there's terrific imagination by DeMille in using the Catholic Church to set in motion a chain of events that lead to a priest being held in captivity for forty years and ultimately to our three journalists searching for Christ's Cup. That said, there were times when the story was slow...unusual for a DeMille read. There's none of John Corey's wit and sarcasm (the protagonist in several of DeMille's other books,) , no anti-terrorism excitement, no consistent page turning madness...I missed that!

Would I recommend THE QUEST... most  definitely, but expect a departure from many of  his other   action-packed novels. It's different enough to stand out and keep the reader's attention, but not what I was expecting to find in MY quest!

Thanks for stopping by. Please join me for my next posting when I'll be sharing art,  photographs and more thoughts.

Hugs,

abbyj