A mortally wounded scholar, lying in a pool of his own blood, desperately clings to life. With his last reserves of energy, he manages to scrawl a cryptic message that can only be understood by one person in the world. The message leads to a secret that has been kept for millennia, one that could shatter the world if it is revealed.
Anyone who has read a book on a plane or watched a Jean Reno movie in the last ten years will probably recognize that as the opening scene of The DaVinci Code. No, I’m not reviewing something half the world has read. I’m reviewing one of the hundreds of books that owe their existence to The DaVinci Code. The scene above is also the opening of The Ark by Boyd Morrison. After reading it, I turned to my wife and said ‘this book is going to suck’.
After the opening scene, we’re introduced to Dilara Kenner, the daughter of the ill-fated scholar. She’s a tough, intelligent, sexy archaeologist. She’s received a mysterious message from an old family friend. The friend mentions a world-threatening conspiracy somehow related to Noah’s Ark and is promptly assassinated. Kenner is eventually led to Tyler Locke – engineer, former Army captain, and all-around super-competent guy. He even has an electrical engineer sidekick who used to be in the Special Forces and was a professional wrestler.
At this point I was reminded of the South Park episode that mocked the writers of Family Guy. The book seemed to be written like a Mad Lib, with random events and clichés thrown together around a conspiracy. Sexy Russian assassin. Cyanide capsules. Mega-rich evil mastermind. Secret codes. Ancient scrolls hidden in tree trunks. Underground base with secret submarine escape route. All of this happens. He even included one of my personal pet peeves – bad biological science. Morrison assumes all pharmaceutical company employees are experts on poisons or bioweapons and his characters blow through complex biochemical development quickly enough to make Agent Scully’s head spin.
However, Morrison does have two things going for him. First, his book is hard to put down. I don’t feel a compulsion to finish every book I start. If it sucks, I’ll drop it. I blew through The Ark in a few days. It moves quickly, it throws in a few good plot twists, and it’s just fun.
Second, Morrison made it through the entire book without mentioning the Templars. To paraphrase Umberto Eco, you can always spot a hack conspiracy writer because sooner or later he’ll bring up the Templars. Thanks to Dan Brown, airport bookstores currently have four sections – books with ‘Templar’ in the title, books with the Templars in the plot synopsis, books that don’t mention the Templars on the cover in order to ‘surprise’ the reader later, and Fifty Shades of Grey. Morrison went a different direction with his conspiracy thriller and the book was much better for it. His take on the Noah’s Ark story was novel and interesting, offering alternate explanations for the details that don’t really make sense. It also didn’t involve a conspiracy handed down for millennia or the involvement of the biggest organizations in the world.
So while this wasn’t the best book I’ve read lately, my initial assessment was wrong – it didn’t suck. For the rating, I started at 5 and docked him one each for the sexy Russian assassin, the cyanide capsule, the submarine escape route, and the bad biology. I give him one for the interesting take on Noah’s Ark, one for not mentioning the Templars, and one for making Locke a combat engineer (personal bias – blame John Ringo). Call it 4 out of 10. The Ark is worth reading if you like conspiracy thrillers, but I wouldn’t necessarily pay for it. Check your local library. For parents, there’s one adult scene that’s only slightly more explicit than you’ll see on prime time TV. The effects of the bioweapons can get pretty gruesome, though.
Large Polyhedron Collider 