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The Black Madonna
A book to make Dan Brown turn green with envy. In the ruins on the outskirts of Gaza a young female archeologist has made a remarkable find: possibly the earliest known image of the Virgin Mary, created during her lifetime. But before she can reveal it to the world it is stolen amidst the chaos of an Israeli air strike. With her former lover, an Oxford professor, she sets out on a quest to discover who has stolen the image and why, encountering mystery, murder, myth and geopolitics and beginning to unearth a conspiracy that dates to the final pagan Roman emperor. "Look out Dan Brown, make way for Millar"--Jeffery Deaver
- GenresMystery
322 pages, Paperback
First published June 14, 2010
1 person is currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Peter Millar
62 books9 followersPeter Millar is an award-winning British journalist, author and translator, and has been a correspondent for Reuters, Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph. He was named Foreign Correspondent of the Year for his reporting on the dying stages of the Cold War, his account of which – 1989: The Berlin Wall, My Part in its Downfall – was named ‘best read’ by The Economist. An inveterate wanderer since his youth, Peter Millar grew up in Northern Ireland and studied at Magdalen College, Oxford. Before and during his university years, he hitchhiked and travelled by train throughout most of Europe, including behind the Iron Curtain to Moscow and Leningrad, as well as hitchhiking barefoot from Dubrovnik to Belfast after being robbed in the former Yugoslavia. He has had his eyelashes frozen in the coldest inhabited place on Earth - Oymyakon, eastern Siberia, where temperatures reach minus 71ºC, was fried at 48ºC in Turkmenistan, dipped his toes in the Mississippi, the Mekong and the Nile, the Dniepr and the Danube, the Rhine and the Rhone, the Seine and the Spree. He crisscrossed the USA by rail for his book All Gone To Look for America and rattled down the spine of Cuba for Slow Train to Guantanamo. He has lived and worked in Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Warsaw and Moscow, attended the funerals of two Soviet leaders, been blessed six times by Pope John Paul II (which would have his staunch Protestant ancestors spinning in their graves), and he has survived multiple visits to the Munich Oktoberfest and the enduring agony of supporting Charlton Athletic. Peter speaks French, German, Russian and Spanish, and is married with two grown-up sons. He splits his time between Oxfordshire and London, and anywhere else that will have him.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 9, 2010
THE BLACK MADONNA, Peter Millar, Arcadia Books, 2010
A review copy of Peter Millar’s The Black Madonna arrived out of the blue when I had just returned from August travels, which included visits to Chartres and Canterbury Cathedrals. Both cathedrals house black madonnas. The one in Chartres is famous, while Canterbury’s black virgin is tucked away in the Lady Chapel deep in the crypt. I found these images so mysterious and intriguing, and thus the book’s arrival seemed like a wonderful synchronicity.
A thriller written in the style of The Da Vinci Code, The Black Madonna’s cover blurb claims this book “will make Dan Brown green with envy.” Although Dan Brown is not a stellar writer or researcher, his popularity bears witness to his readers’ incredible hunger to learn more about the divine feminine within Christianity, an issue that Millar’s book would also seem to address, given the Marian prayers and hymns quoted on the flyleaf. So while I don’t generally read this sort of thing, I decided to give it a go to see if Millar, a journalist and translator with an international reputation, had any unique insights to offer on the enigmatic black virgins, found in pilgrimage sites across Europe.
The novel opens in Gaza, Palestine, where an ancient statue has been unearthed, believed to be the earliest representation of the Virgin Mary, possibly made in her own lifetime. This priceless artefact is housed in a museum in Gaza, but then, during the mayhem of an Israeli air strike, a thief breaks in and not only steals the Madonna but brutally rapes Nazreem, the curator, in a scene that felt very gratuitous and over the top.
Nazreem has something even more precious in her possession that the thief and his cohorts must never find. She flees to England to seek the help of Marcus, her South African ex-lover, a historian and fellow at All Souls College in Oxford. Meanwhile Nazreem and Marcus are being trailed by Islamic jihadists and British spooks. Their quest for the missing Madonna takes them to Altoetting, Bavaria, and then on to Madrid, Guadalupe, and Avila in Spain. Soon they must flee the clutches of fundamentalist Christians from Texas who have joined forces with the jihadists. And why would these two mutually opposed groups work together to stalk a lost statue of the Virgin Mary? To expose the Catholic Church as idolatrous Goddess worshippers, apparently, for the Madonna is, in fact, an image of the Phrygian Goddess Kybele. Add to this mix a castrated transsexual Kybele-worshipping serial murderer pretending to be a Catholic nun. Frankly, I don’t think Dan Brown will find much to envy here.
As well as a plot that defies credulity, the characterization seems poorly drawn. Although a PhD historian and an expert in comparative religion, Nazreem is astonished when Marcus informs her that Avila, Spain has its own famous saint—Teresa of Avila! While poor Nazreem must endure a brutal rape and beating, and is stabbed with a scimitar, Marcus is a male Mary Sue who breezes through druggings and kidnappings without suffering as much as a bruise.
There is no central revelation here to redeem the outlandish plot and labored writing. It has long been observed that Marian devotion may have its roots—or at least strong parallels—in the mystery religions devoted to Isis, Kybele, and Demeter, all manifestations of the Great Mother. There is also nothing new about the parallels between Christianity and its other early rival, the Persian cult of Mithras. As Christianity developed in the Hellenistic Mediterranean world, it would seem only natural that it would bear a marked resemblance to other contemporary religions devoted to a dying and rising deity born of a virgin mother.
Perhaps the oddest thing about Millar’s novel is that it is published by Arcadia Books, a small independent press devoted to world literature and funded by the Arts Council of England. Perhaps the Arts Council funds would be better spent supporting an author whose writing shows a greater degree of originality or artistic merit than this weak imitation of Dan Brown.
A review copy of Peter Millar’s The Black Madonna arrived out of the blue when I had just returned from August travels, which included visits to Chartres and Canterbury Cathedrals. Both cathedrals house black madonnas. The one in Chartres is famous, while Canterbury’s black virgin is tucked away in the Lady Chapel deep in the crypt. I found these images so mysterious and intriguing, and thus the book’s arrival seemed like a wonderful synchronicity.
A thriller written in the style of The Da Vinci Code, The Black Madonna’s cover blurb claims this book “will make Dan Brown green with envy.” Although Dan Brown is not a stellar writer or researcher, his popularity bears witness to his readers’ incredible hunger to learn more about the divine feminine within Christianity, an issue that Millar’s book would also seem to address, given the Marian prayers and hymns quoted on the flyleaf. So while I don’t generally read this sort of thing, I decided to give it a go to see if Millar, a journalist and translator with an international reputation, had any unique insights to offer on the enigmatic black virgins, found in pilgrimage sites across Europe.
The novel opens in Gaza, Palestine, where an ancient statue has been unearthed, believed to be the earliest representation of the Virgin Mary, possibly made in her own lifetime. This priceless artefact is housed in a museum in Gaza, but then, during the mayhem of an Israeli air strike, a thief breaks in and not only steals the Madonna but brutally rapes Nazreem, the curator, in a scene that felt very gratuitous and over the top.
Nazreem has something even more precious in her possession that the thief and his cohorts must never find. She flees to England to seek the help of Marcus, her South African ex-lover, a historian and fellow at All Souls College in Oxford. Meanwhile Nazreem and Marcus are being trailed by Islamic jihadists and British spooks. Their quest for the missing Madonna takes them to Altoetting, Bavaria, and then on to Madrid, Guadalupe, and Avila in Spain. Soon they must flee the clutches of fundamentalist Christians from Texas who have joined forces with the jihadists. And why would these two mutually opposed groups work together to stalk a lost statue of the Virgin Mary? To expose the Catholic Church as idolatrous Goddess worshippers, apparently, for the Madonna is, in fact, an image of the Phrygian Goddess Kybele. Add to this mix a castrated transsexual Kybele-worshipping serial murderer pretending to be a Catholic nun. Frankly, I don’t think Dan Brown will find much to envy here.
As well as a plot that defies credulity, the characterization seems poorly drawn. Although a PhD historian and an expert in comparative religion, Nazreem is astonished when Marcus informs her that Avila, Spain has its own famous saint—Teresa of Avila! While poor Nazreem must endure a brutal rape and beating, and is stabbed with a scimitar, Marcus is a male Mary Sue who breezes through druggings and kidnappings without suffering as much as a bruise.
There is no central revelation here to redeem the outlandish plot and labored writing. It has long been observed that Marian devotion may have its roots—or at least strong parallels—in the mystery religions devoted to Isis, Kybele, and Demeter, all manifestations of the Great Mother. There is also nothing new about the parallels between Christianity and its other early rival, the Persian cult of Mithras. As Christianity developed in the Hellenistic Mediterranean world, it would seem only natural that it would bear a marked resemblance to other contemporary religions devoted to a dying and rising deity born of a virgin mother.
Perhaps the oddest thing about Millar’s novel is that it is published by Arcadia Books, a small independent press devoted to world literature and funded by the Arts Council of England. Perhaps the Arts Council funds would be better spent supporting an author whose writing shows a greater degree of originality or artistic merit than this weak imitation of Dan Brown.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 16, 2012
It seems to me that Peter Millar has taken a copy of the Da Vinci Code and used it as a template for writing what he hopes will be a bestseller, but in all honesty (and I truly thought I'd never write this sentence), Dan Brown's novels are way better than this silly nonsense.
The Black Madonna shares many of the hallmarks of Brown's blockbuster, most notably, a lot of very short chapters. Just as you are getting involved in some aspect of the plot, just when it appears something is actually starting to happen, the action jumps away, often for no good reason, to what another character is doing or thinking in another part the world, then, with one bound, we're back where we started. It gave the narrative a jumpy, grasshopper quality that was probably meant to be exciting, but which I found pointlessly annoying.
Just like Dan Brown, Peter Millar likes to keep his extensive researches on display, with characters rambling on for paragraph after paragraph of unnecessary, stilted conversations of the kind that real people never have - especially when they are both academics of equal standing, one an archaeologist, the other a comparative historian, surely, they shouldn't have to spell it all out like this? But they do, in exhaustive detail, over and over and over again. But then, the characters are so template, so cardboard, there is no depth to any one of them, all we know is what the author tells us (always told, never shown) - like the fact that one of his chief protagonists is a Fellow of All Souls, which you'd think would endow him with some intelligence, yet Marcus is such a plank, his working knowledge of his own subject seems rudimentary at best and his incredulity at the most mundane revelations, his bumbling idiocy and ignorance of basic surveillance techniques simply beggars belief.
You've probably twigged that I'm not a fan of Dan Brown and I'm almost certainly not the intended audience for this novel. Maybe this is how this kind of book is generally presented? Maybe my criticisms are unfair, but I would expect a fast-paced thriller of this type to have an engaging and absorbing plot and The Black Madonna doesn't even have that. The narrative leaps from location to location, each one peopled by less believable characters than the last, as a series of entirely predictable (because each turn of the plot is neatly telegraphed chapters in advance) events unfold. And then we get The Big Revelation, the bit we've all been wading for, and it turns out to have the impact of a 50p firework.
I shan't spoil it, but surely, isn't this one of those everyday facts most of us have known since junior school? Heavens above, they'll be telling us next that Jesus wasn't born at Christmas.
The Black Madonna shares many of the hallmarks of Brown's blockbuster, most notably, a lot of very short chapters. Just as you are getting involved in some aspect of the plot, just when it appears something is actually starting to happen, the action jumps away, often for no good reason, to what another character is doing or thinking in another part the world, then, with one bound, we're back where we started. It gave the narrative a jumpy, grasshopper quality that was probably meant to be exciting, but which I found pointlessly annoying.
Just like Dan Brown, Peter Millar likes to keep his extensive researches on display, with characters rambling on for paragraph after paragraph of unnecessary, stilted conversations of the kind that real people never have - especially when they are both academics of equal standing, one an archaeologist, the other a comparative historian, surely, they shouldn't have to spell it all out like this? But they do, in exhaustive detail, over and over and over again. But then, the characters are so template, so cardboard, there is no depth to any one of them, all we know is what the author tells us (always told, never shown) - like the fact that one of his chief protagonists is a Fellow of All Souls, which you'd think would endow him with some intelligence, yet Marcus is such a plank, his working knowledge of his own subject seems rudimentary at best and his incredulity at the most mundane revelations, his bumbling idiocy and ignorance of basic surveillance techniques simply beggars belief.
You've probably twigged that I'm not a fan of Dan Brown and I'm almost certainly not the intended audience for this novel. Maybe this is how this kind of book is generally presented? Maybe my criticisms are unfair, but I would expect a fast-paced thriller of this type to have an engaging and absorbing plot and The Black Madonna doesn't even have that. The narrative leaps from location to location, each one peopled by less believable characters than the last, as a series of entirely predictable (because each turn of the plot is neatly telegraphed chapters in advance) events unfold. And then we get The Big Revelation, the bit we've all been wading for, and it turns out to have the impact of a 50p firework.
I shan't spoil it, but surely, isn't this one of those everyday facts most of us have known since junior school? Heavens above, they'll be telling us next that Jesus wasn't born at Christmas.
February 28, 2016
Peter Millar has been compared to Dan Brown, though having read 'Angels and Demons' I think that Peter Millar's storyline is more believable and exciting and is much better written overall.
When Nazreem Hashrawi, Museum Curator, discovers "one of the most important, semi-legendary items in Christian lore" her life is instantly in danger from people who are not averse to brutally torturing and murdering people who get in their way. But just why these people would want the Madonna and why they would want to kill Nazreem is revealed slowly and tantalisingly in this very compelling story with twists and turns that I found hard to put down.
The tension built up steadily as Nazreem and her ex-lover Marcus Frey, an Oxford Professor, travel to Spain and Bavaria in an effort to seek out other similar idols while meeting people such as the devout Sister Galina in Germany who mysteriously vanishes after speaking to them.
I thought the plot was fascinating overall and Peter Millar has obviously done an amazing amount of research; it seemed that every character had an encyclopaedic memory of historical events and which sometimes seemed too much and I couldn't always take in all the facts and figures, though I could follow the story (just!) without it spoiling my enjoyment.
Even though it is a complicated plot at no time did I feel that I didn't know what was going on, the style of writing was very readable, most of the characters were believable (with a couple of exceptions) and I liked the way that an intelligent headstrong young Muslim woman was one of the lead characters.
Thoroughly recommended for anyone who enjoys a thriller with a historical lesson - the authors notes at the back of the book make for interesting reading too.
When Nazreem Hashrawi, Museum Curator, discovers "one of the most important, semi-legendary items in Christian lore" her life is instantly in danger from people who are not averse to brutally torturing and murdering people who get in their way. But just why these people would want the Madonna and why they would want to kill Nazreem is revealed slowly and tantalisingly in this very compelling story with twists and turns that I found hard to put down.
The tension built up steadily as Nazreem and her ex-lover Marcus Frey, an Oxford Professor, travel to Spain and Bavaria in an effort to seek out other similar idols while meeting people such as the devout Sister Galina in Germany who mysteriously vanishes after speaking to them.
I thought the plot was fascinating overall and Peter Millar has obviously done an amazing amount of research; it seemed that every character had an encyclopaedic memory of historical events and which sometimes seemed too much and I couldn't always take in all the facts and figures, though I could follow the story (just!) without it spoiling my enjoyment.
Even though it is a complicated plot at no time did I feel that I didn't know what was going on, the style of writing was very readable, most of the characters were believable (with a couple of exceptions) and I liked the way that an intelligent headstrong young Muslim woman was one of the lead characters.
Thoroughly recommended for anyone who enjoys a thriller with a historical lesson - the authors notes at the back of the book make for interesting reading too.
April 8, 2012
Maybe it was the element of combining mystery with religious history that suggests a parallel between The Black Madonna and Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code.However, some will find that the comparison isn’t fair; through tackling scientific angles of history that could redefine religion, Brown created a lot of religious condemnation.
Millar probably won’t face the same allegations, as he’s been fair in portraying both sides of the story. Perhaps this may make Dan Brown jealous after all.
Read my full review of The Black Madonna here:
http://www.cairo360.com/article/books...
Millar probably won’t face the same allegations, as he’s been fair in portraying both sides of the story. Perhaps this may make Dan Brown jealous after all.
Read my full review of The Black Madonna here:
http://www.cairo360.com/article/books...
October 22, 2010
This novel leaves Dan Brown sprawled in the shade! International conspiracy, global politics, a controversial religious dimension and a fascinating look at the past - it's all here, including present-day Palestine, England and southern Europe. The Black Madonna is truly gripping in a way that Brown could never be and I wholeheartedly recommend it. Five plus stars.
July 29, 2018
An OK thriller but over the top plot and the characters aren't that convincing.
May 23, 2012
Not too bad, usual Dan Brown comparison...
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews