One more post because I promised I’d do one for this book.
Upon receiving the book, The Rose Conspiracy
In addition, it was a Christian novel. I don’t read many of those because they tend to be romances (UGH 🙂 ) and are usually very predictable, with a main character getting “saved” near the end.
I was pleasantly surprised.
Parshall has woven a nice little mystery around the Lincoln assassination, the Freemasons, the Smithsonian Institute, the Bible, greed, and man’s eternal quest for immortality.
The elements of conspiracy reminded me somewhat of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and the legal maneuvering made me think back to Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent.
Vinnie Archmont, a beautiful artist, is accused of killing the curator of the Smithsonian Institute and stealing the missing pages of John Wilkes Booth’s diary. Financed by a wealthy Freemason living in England, she hires J. D. Blackstone, a law professor and high profile lawyer, to keep her from the death chamber.
The key seems to be a cryptic fragment purportedly from the diary. Blackstone must crack this code before the lovely artist’s trial. His journey to unscramble the meaning takes him into the secrets of Freemasonry, the occult and personal danger, while he tries to deal with his own personal demons.
Then comes the day of the trial and a surprise ending. The last chapter almost ruined it for me, but was sufficiently vague as to keep Blackstone’s salvation in question.
In any case this is a worthy read.
Musings of a Thoughtful Conservative 