Book Review: The Venice Conspiracy

[Shiloh Adlar]

Title of the book: The Venice Conspiracy
Authors: Sam Christer
Series: Tom Shaman
Genres: Crime, Thriller, Mystery

I had picked up The Venice Conspiracy a while back, and I had started reading it. I loved The DaVinci Code and it was described to be similar. However, this book started off so slow and I eventually put it down sometime back in early June. While I loved the historical setting back in Italy during the time of the Etruscans, a civilization I have always been curious about, I could not stand what was happening in present day Venice. It started off with a great story of a Catholic priest who does this heroic deed yet is still punished for it and he eventually decides to stop being a priest and take some time away and goes to Venice. A bunch of crazy things happen but the action is really slow in this part, so I got very bored, very quickly.

I guess what pulled me back was the chapters in the past. This book goes back and forth from past to present but does so in a very neat way. Chapters only jump when necessary to give new information to the reader, and the chapters in the past are always announced in Italian. The story of Tetia and Teucer was so intriguing, and I decided, okay, I'm going to pick this book back up and finish it this time. About halfway through the book, I couldn't put it down until it was finally about 3am and my eyes wouldn't stay open.

It took a while for the story to really heat up, but once it does, it's a roller coaster. The mystery behind these tablets, the tablets that are told about with Tetia and Teucer and then come back to play in present day Venice, is very intriguing. Then trying to find out who this mystery person is and how the past is being connected to the present, what the tablets mean exactly, it's all mystifying.

To sum up, I'm very glad I came back to this book. Even though I got bored with it, I ended up finishing it and getting very excited over it afterwards. There were so many times I would make a guess at what the secret was and sometimes I was right with certain things and other times majorly wrong! I don't think there was a moment until the very last part of the epilogue where there was that '"OMG! PLOT TWIST!" moment. It definitely opened it up to a continuation, and I know Christer has written more with Tom Shaman, the main character of this story. It's definitely worth a read if you like books like The DaVinci Code, just know it takes some time to get through the first part of the book before it really hooks you in.

Also to note: This book is not appropriate for those under 18 due to certain content and graphic language.