I picked this up without much expectations and still was disappointed with the way the story progressed. It has an outline that is interesting enough - an ancient secret that can destroy the world if revealed, which the hero is tasked with protecting at all costs, who is chased across countries and continents by the unscrupulous people desperate to possess the secret at any cost. But the execution is way too tortuous for my liking. There are many superfluous sequences, loose ends, and pointless killings which made me wanting to chuck it. But, I persevered until the end without getting rewarded, except for the morsels of history and the appealing descriptions of the locales. The Testament promises a lot and delivers very little - full of action and devoid of substance. ( )

A storyline too much like other books about someone needing to save a part of history due to religious beliefs. First 50 pages tried to give background. Bravo is left to figure out a series of coded messages his father left him by traveling through parts of Europe. Meanwhile people are trying to kill him constantly which became too often and graphic. It is always amazing how certain people keep surviving. Confusing due to several twists to realize who were the good people. There is an author's note at the end about how much was based on actual facts. ( )

So-So quasi-religious order's search for the testament of Jesus, thwarted by another order. ( )

Eric Van Lustbader is the author of The Testament is a book about conflicting religious societies who are locked in battle over a religious manuscript that would shake Christianity to its core. The protagonist is Bravo Shaw and he struggles throughout the book to decipher codes his late father left for him as he fights to save Christianity as it is today. The cover design of the book depicts a man running through an archaic building and is very appealing because it creates the impression of intrigue which the book is based around. I would recommend this book to anyone who is into novels with a great deal of action and intrigue. ( )

The new international thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bourne Legacy Braverman ShawדBravo” to his friends—always knew his father had secrets. But not until Dexter Shaw dies in a mysterious explosion does Bravo discover the enormity of his father's hidden life as a high-ranking member of the Order of Gnostic Observatines, a sect founded by followers of St. Francis of Assisi and believed to have been wiped out centuries ago. For more than eight hundred years, the Order has preserved an ancient cache of documents, including a long-lost Testament attributed to Christ that could shake Christianity to its foundations. Dexter Shaw was the latest Keeper of the Testament—and Bravo is his chosen successor. Before Dexter died, he hid the cache where only Bravo could find it. Now Bravo, an accomplished medieval scholar and cryptanalyst, must follow the esoteric clues his father left behind. His companion in this quest is Jenny Logan, a driven young woman with secrets of her own. Jenny is a Guardian, assigned by the Order to protect Bravo, or so she claims. Bravo soon learns that he can trust no one where the Testament is concerned, perhaps not even Jenny . . . Another secret society, the Knights of St. Clement, originally founded and sponsored by the Papacy, has been after the Order's precious cache since the time of the Crusades. The Knights, agents and assassins, will stop at nothing to obtain the treasure. Bravo has become both a target and a pawn in an ongoing war far larger and more deadly than any he could have imagined.

Good mystery where you don't know who's telling the truth or who's a liar. ( )

Always on the lookout for books in the "theological thriller" genre, I picked this one up ready for the "roller-coaster of a read" promised by one reviewer somewhere. Well, that it was, because the pace was so fast, but to be brutally honest, I just didn't like it. It started out well, with lots of promise and kept me interested, but when it takes me four days to read a novel like this, there's a reason. I kept picking it up, reading it, and putting it back down. Normally books in this vein might last overnight if they're really good.

brief synopsis; no spoilers:

The story opens back in the 15th century in a monastery which is under attack. It seems that a group known as the Knights of St. Clement (a Christian group under the auspices of the Vatican) is an enemy of and sworn to destroy the group known as the Gnostic Observatines, an order based on the monasticism of St. Francis of Assisi. Flash forward to the modern day, where a father is expecting to reunite with his son. The father, Dexter Shaw, tries to convince his son Braverman (Bravo) to use his training as a medieval scholar and work with him; Bravo already has a job in Europe and wants no part of his dad's work life. One thing leads to another, Dexter is killed and leaves Bravo a safety deposit box full of miscellaneous items -- all which serve as a cyper to unravel to guide Bravo to a "cache of secrets" which had been in Dexter's keeping. It turns out that the medieval war is not over quite yet; another group wants to lay their hands on this cache of secrets for sinister reasons.

Sounds right up my alley, but wait. I was looking for a good thriller -- you know...who's the traitor, that sort of thing but figured it all out very quickly. And I just hate when scholarly types become transformed into a lean, mean killing machine, out of keeping with their characters. The plot is a bit different than other books like this, and that made the book interesting. That was a plus here.

Would I recommend it? Well, I'd say give it a try if you like this sort of thing, but having read tons of this genre, it's not at the top of my list. ( )

Fiction