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Brotherhood of the Tomb
This fourth thriller (after The Ninth Buddha ) by a pseudonymous British author confirms his rising reputation as a literary writer of well-researched espionage tales.
In 1968 in Jerusalem, a tomb is discovered that contains the bones of Jesus, his “brother” James, and their mother, Mary. At the same time, at Trinity College in Dublin, young American student Patrick Canavan falls in love with Francesca Contarini, who wears a strange cross around her neck. Twenty-four years later, Francesca has apparently drowned, and Canavan, now ex-CIA, has returned to Dublin to try to recapture his youthful peace of mind. But events from the past impinge on the just after Canavan realizes he is being watched by a sinister man with a strange tattoo, he discovers an old priest with his eyes gouged out. Then children are murdered and their hearts ripped from their bodies, and KGB agents have their heads shaved and covered with plastic bags.
Teaming up with an Ethiopian priest, Canavan must decipher Hebrew, Greek, and Italian texts to detect the apparent reemergence of the secret Brotherhood, a twelfth century right-wing sect. Is the cult, founded on the teachings of James, out to seize the papacy, spread the word that Christ did not die on the cross, and reinitiate human sacrifice? And is Francesca actually dead? Easterman connects the threads of his complex narrative with riveting almost every chapter ends with a cerebral cliff-hanger guaranteed to speed readers on to the next page.
In 1968 in Jerusalem, a tomb is discovered that contains the bones of Jesus, his “brother” James, and their mother, Mary. At the same time, at Trinity College in Dublin, young American student Patrick Canavan falls in love with Francesca Contarini, who wears a strange cross around her neck. Twenty-four years later, Francesca has apparently drowned, and Canavan, now ex-CIA, has returned to Dublin to try to recapture his youthful peace of mind. But events from the past impinge on the just after Canavan realizes he is being watched by a sinister man with a strange tattoo, he discovers an old priest with his eyes gouged out. Then children are murdered and their hearts ripped from their bodies, and KGB agents have their heads shaved and covered with plastic bags.
Teaming up with an Ethiopian priest, Canavan must decipher Hebrew, Greek, and Italian texts to detect the apparent reemergence of the secret Brotherhood, a twelfth century right-wing sect. Is the cult, founded on the teachings of James, out to seize the papacy, spread the word that Christ did not die on the cross, and reinitiate human sacrifice? And is Francesca actually dead? Easterman connects the threads of his complex narrative with riveting almost every chapter ends with a cerebral cliff-hanger guaranteed to speed readers on to the next page.
304 pages, Paperback
First published August 24, 1989
5 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Easterman
49 books58 followersA pseudonym used by Denis M. MacEoin (aka Jonathan Aycliffe).
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
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August 1, 2024!!!!!!!
THIS REVIEW MAY HAVE SOME SPOILERS. I normally don't spoiler-hide my reviews or even warn for them, but there is some mystery/suspense in this novel, so be warned.
!!!!!!
Why I read it: I first read this book when I was 14. My bio dad brought it with him on holiday and I read it after he did. I watched all the Robert Langdon movies + the National Treasure movies this week, so I was feeling nostalgic.
Thoughts: The same year I read this for the first time, I also read The Da Vinci Code for the first time. I didn't realise it until now, but that + The X-Files seem apparently developed in me a fascination with secret cults and organisations and conspiracies. If there's a religious element, all the better -- I'm not religious anymore (I'd say I'm spiritual instead, maybe) but I was definitely raised under the stern and ever-watchful eye of the Christian-Orthodox God, and the religious elements to conspiracy novels gives them a most delightful taboo flavour. (Sidenote: I think the same year I read this book, or maybe the year before, I read The Exorcist. Talk about religious taboo.)
As far as this book goes... I liked it. From the very beginning, the fascination of old was reinstated. It starts off mysterious and violent, and it sort of keeps that atmosphere going for most of the book. I really liked the writing style. Plain and to the point most of the time, but then occasionally veering off into attempts at descriptive, poetic language. Passages like this painted a picture for me of how Patrick, the protagonist, sees the world:
It's all very grim and dramatic, and Patrick is a very grim and dramatic sort of guy, cut from the same cloth as many action novel protagonists: sad and angsty, with a tragic past and/or a broken hear, but Able To Get The Job Done.
I also enjoyed, surprisingly for me, the way the torture scene was written, when Patrick gets kidnapped by the KGB. It was pure edging by the KGB, with no physical violence but psychological torment (controlling his food, his sleep, his routine), fear and isolation, combined with forced intimacy and a hint of eroticism. The passage ends with Patrick's torturers just stopping their visits one day and Patrick suffering in his locked room for a number of days before he genuinely cracks:
After this, Patrick goes through the house and finds all the rooms empty, eventually finding the KGB agents dead by hands unknown, which is fine, it moves the plot forward. But that bit I quoted, where he's ready to confess (never mind that he really didn't know anything the KGB were asking him about) also struck me as fascinating.
I like to think it was an intentional parallel to one of the plot points of the novel. Much later on, Patrick finds out that the titular Brotherhood of the Tomb is a cult(? sect?) which guards the truth of Jesus's crucifixion: Jesus did not die on the cross, but was taken down and nursed back to health by his mother, and when he wanted to leave because near-dying mentally broke him and he couldn't face the cross again, his remaining disciples realised that the promise of their sins being cleansed would not be fulfilled if the Son of God didn't actually die for said sins, so they dragged him to the tomb themselves and rolled the stone on it and waited for him to die. With the power of hindsight, I see that echoed in Patrick's stint in the tender love 'n' care of the KGB. The horror of being locked away into a secret room. The horror of being umade at the whim of someone else. The horror of being watched all the while, during humiliating episodes. The horror and the relied of finding out that no one was really watching him at the end, at his weaked, when he gave up. The horror of the room nearly being a tomb, the horror of nearly dying and not know what he was about to die for. It's beautiful.
Anyway, the rest of the book is fine. Other than the mystery of the Brotherhood and Passover, there is the mystery of what happened to Francesca, Patrick's girlfriend from college. He was at her funeral 20 years earlier, then in the course of his investigation, he finds a photo of her standing in front of her own tomb. He has... hallucinations of her, dreams, nightmares. They both torment and guide him. He goes to Venice, and oh man, Venice. I love Venice, and I particularly love Venice as it's written here; it's both sacred and profane; it's a city of wonders but also a city of filth; it's sinking but it will live on forever. there's decrepit palazzos and tourist traps (my mom and I once had very expensive coffee at Florian's lol); there's religion and history and communist newspapers. There's misery but also tenderness. It's good stuff.
Unfortunately, the novel does falter once Francesca turns up alive and (mostly) well, and it becomes a stock action/adventure novel, or like the last 20 minutes of, say, the Angels & Demons movie, where Langdon is just rushing from one place to the next at breakneck speed, getting in increasing amounts of trouble until the last resolution. There are a bunch of dramatic reveals, there's a big shoot-out at the Vatican, Patrick saves the Pope, he and Francesca are together again, the end. Well, actually, after he saves the Pope, the author dangles a bit of mystery as he tells us, from Francesca's point of view, that Francesca still has a big secret but that she'll endeavour to enjoy the next few years with Patrick, at which point I flicked the Kindle to the next page with bated breath, eager to see what the secret was, and then the end, so I exclaimed "What?!", stared at my Kindle for 20 seconds and made sure I didn't miss anything, then I went to sleep mad. It's unconscionable, to leave it like that.
I also think leaning on a vague supernatural angle and then never delivering anything on the topic was not great. Why did Patrick have those hallucinations? Who knows. Did he actually have focal epilepsy? Who knows. Were they visions? Who knows. How did he have a dream about an ancient pagan ritual that he had never read anything about and then turned out to have existed? Who knows. How did he have a prescient dream about an apartment in Rome that he'd never been to? Who knows.
Would I read more from this author: Honestly? Not really. I feel like I got what I wanted from this encounter, and I can't say that this book wowed me to such an extent that I'd get his other works.
Would I recommend it: Yeah. It's pulpy and it's quick, so if you're the Da Vinci Code type... have at it.
THIS REVIEW MAY HAVE SOME SPOILERS. I normally don't spoiler-hide my reviews or even warn for them, but there is some mystery/suspense in this novel, so be warned.
!!!!!!
Why I read it: I first read this book when I was 14. My bio dad brought it with him on holiday and I read it after he did. I watched all the Robert Langdon movies + the National Treasure movies this week, so I was feeling nostalgic.
Thoughts: The same year I read this for the first time, I also read The Da Vinci Code for the first time. I didn't realise it until now, but that + The X-Files seem apparently developed in me a fascination with secret cults and organisations and conspiracies. If there's a religious element, all the better -- I'm not religious anymore (I'd say I'm spiritual instead, maybe) but I was definitely raised under the stern and ever-watchful eye of the Christian-Orthodox God, and the religious elements to conspiracy novels gives them a most delightful taboo flavour. (Sidenote: I think the same year I read this book, or maybe the year before, I read The Exorcist. Talk about religious taboo.)
As far as this book goes... I liked it. From the very beginning, the fascination of old was reinstated. It starts off mysterious and violent, and it sort of keeps that atmosphere going for most of the book. I really liked the writing style. Plain and to the point most of the time, but then occasionally veering off into attempts at descriptive, poetic language. Passages like this painted a picture for me of how Patrick, the protagonist, sees the world:
Behind him, in the darkness, the sea moved, rank and heavy with drowning men and the bodies of great fish sinking to its rotten bed. They were devouring one another down there, men and fish and all manner of swimming and crawling things.
It's all very grim and dramatic, and Patrick is a very grim and dramatic sort of guy, cut from the same cloth as many action novel protagonists: sad and angsty, with a tragic past and/or a broken hear, but Able To Get The Job Done.
I also enjoyed, surprisingly for me, the way the torture scene was written, when Patrick gets kidnapped by the KGB. It was pure edging by the KGB, with no physical violence but psychological torment (controlling his food, his sleep, his routine), fear and isolation, combined with forced intimacy and a hint of eroticism. The passage ends with Patrick's torturers just stopping their visits one day and Patrick suffering in his locked room for a number of days before he genuinely cracks:
The fear grew more intense. More than ever, he had lost track of time and place. If he did not leave soon, this tiny chamber would become his tomb.
(...) There was no need to continue the farce. He was broken. He would confess. Natalya Pavolvna would understand. There would be no gloating, no rebukes. Just relief that their ordeal was over. But no one came.
(...) [the chair] crashed against the mirror with a roar of fragmenting glass. Something sharp flew against his cheek. He let the chair fall. The room beyond was empty.
After this, Patrick goes through the house and finds all the rooms empty, eventually finding the KGB agents dead by hands unknown, which is fine, it moves the plot forward. But that bit I quoted, where he's ready to confess (never mind that he really didn't know anything the KGB were asking him about) also struck me as fascinating.
I like to think it was an intentional parallel to one of the plot points of the novel. Much later on, Patrick finds out that the titular Brotherhood of the Tomb is a cult(? sect?) which guards the truth of Jesus's crucifixion: Jesus did not die on the cross, but was taken down and nursed back to health by his mother, and when he wanted to leave because near-dying mentally broke him and he couldn't face the cross again, his remaining disciples realised that the promise of their sins being cleansed would not be fulfilled if the Son of God didn't actually die for said sins, so they dragged him to the tomb themselves and rolled the stone on it and waited for him to die. With the power of hindsight, I see that echoed in Patrick's stint in the tender love 'n' care of the KGB. The horror of being locked away into a secret room. The horror of being umade at the whim of someone else. The horror of being watched all the while, during humiliating episodes. The horror and the relied of finding out that no one was really watching him at the end, at his weaked, when he gave up. The horror of the room nearly being a tomb, the horror of nearly dying and not know what he was about to die for. It's beautiful.
Anyway, the rest of the book is fine. Other than the mystery of the Brotherhood and Passover, there is the mystery of what happened to Francesca, Patrick's girlfriend from college. He was at her funeral 20 years earlier, then in the course of his investigation, he finds a photo of her standing in front of her own tomb. He has... hallucinations of her, dreams, nightmares. They both torment and guide him. He goes to Venice, and oh man, Venice. I love Venice, and I particularly love Venice as it's written here; it's both sacred and profane; it's a city of wonders but also a city of filth; it's sinking but it will live on forever. there's decrepit palazzos and tourist traps (my mom and I once had very expensive coffee at Florian's lol); there's religion and history and communist newspapers. There's misery but also tenderness. It's good stuff.
Unfortunately, the novel does falter once Francesca turns up alive and (mostly) well, and it becomes a stock action/adventure novel, or like the last 20 minutes of, say, the Angels & Demons movie, where Langdon is just rushing from one place to the next at breakneck speed, getting in increasing amounts of trouble until the last resolution. There are a bunch of dramatic reveals, there's a big shoot-out at the Vatican, Patrick saves the Pope, he and Francesca are together again, the end. Well, actually, after he saves the Pope, the author dangles a bit of mystery as he tells us, from Francesca's point of view, that Francesca still has a big secret but that she'll endeavour to enjoy the next few years with Patrick, at which point I flicked the Kindle to the next page with bated breath, eager to see what the secret was, and then the end, so I exclaimed "What?!", stared at my Kindle for 20 seconds and made sure I didn't miss anything, then I went to sleep mad. It's unconscionable, to leave it like that.
I also think leaning on a vague supernatural angle and then never delivering anything on the topic was not great. Why did Patrick have those hallucinations? Who knows. Did he actually have focal epilepsy? Who knows. Were they visions? Who knows. How did he have a dream about an ancient pagan ritual that he had never read anything about and then turned out to have existed? Who knows. How did he have a prescient dream about an apartment in Rome that he'd never been to? Who knows.
Would I read more from this author: Honestly? Not really. I feel like I got what I wanted from this encounter, and I can't say that this book wowed me to such an extent that I'd get his other works.
Would I recommend it: Yeah. It's pulpy and it's quick, so if you're the Da Vinci Code type... have at it.
May 2, 2019
I started out really liking this book. It grabbed me from the start but them I got bogged down in the details, lost interest and had to make myself keep reading.
It had its ups and downs.
It had its ups and downs.
August 6, 2021
O echipă de arheologi de la Departamentul Muzeelor şi Antichităţilor primise un termen de o lună pentru a studia mormintele şi conţinutul lor. La sfârşitul acestei perioade, adică după doar câteva zile, oasele trebuia să fie reaşezate în sarcofage şi îngropate la loc. După aceea buldozerele şi compresoarele aveau să se întoarcă, pentru a turna smoală şi ciment în fâşii topite, iar morții aveau să-şi reia somnul.
Gershon Aharoni se împiedica, înjură în barbă şi se întoarse la bărbatul din spatele său.
— Fiţi atent, aici e o mică treaptă, spuse el, străduindu-se să zâmbească, şi-i întinse italianului o mână de sprijin. Trebuia să-şi reprime nervii, iritarea de a se afla, pur şi simplu, acolo. Existau multe lucruri urgente de făcut la muzeu, iar timpul era şi aşa puţin. Îi venea să-l bată pe Kaplan pentru că îi dăduse această treabă.
Fă tot ce poţi, Gershon. Plimbă-l. Stârneşte-i interesul. Lasă-l să-şi bage nasul puţin, să se murdărească pe mâini, să găsească un artefact. Ascunde tu unul într-un loc în care să dea uşor peste el, fă-l să se simtă implicat. Dar, pentru numele lui Dumnezeu, îndulceşte-l cumva. Dacă e nevoie, spune-i că ne aşteptăm din clipă în clipă să găsim rămăşiţele lui Iisus, ale Fecioarei Maria şi ale celor doisprezece apostoli la un loc. Şi capul Sfântului Ioan Botezătorul şi Sânii Salomeii, dacă pare uşor de dus de nas. Dar convinge-l să cheltuiască bani. Mulţi bani. Atât cât e nevoie pentru o fundaţie de cercetare şi un muzeu nou. Lasă-l să-şi folosească imaginaţia, dacă are. Fondul Episcopului Migliau pentru Arheologie Biblică – vezi dacă-i place cum sună. Poate să-l scrie cu litere mari de zece picioare, dacă-i face plăcere. Totul e să-l aduci mâine dimineaţă la biroul meu, cu aerul unui om care-şi câştigă existenţa semnând cecuri.
Gershon Aharoni se împiedica, înjură în barbă şi se întoarse la bărbatul din spatele său.
— Fiţi atent, aici e o mică treaptă, spuse el, străduindu-se să zâmbească, şi-i întinse italianului o mână de sprijin. Trebuia să-şi reprime nervii, iritarea de a se afla, pur şi simplu, acolo. Existau multe lucruri urgente de făcut la muzeu, iar timpul era şi aşa puţin. Îi venea să-l bată pe Kaplan pentru că îi dăduse această treabă.
Fă tot ce poţi, Gershon. Plimbă-l. Stârneşte-i interesul. Lasă-l să-şi bage nasul puţin, să se murdărească pe mâini, să găsească un artefact. Ascunde tu unul într-un loc în care să dea uşor peste el, fă-l să se simtă implicat. Dar, pentru numele lui Dumnezeu, îndulceşte-l cumva. Dacă e nevoie, spune-i că ne aşteptăm din clipă în clipă să găsim rămăşiţele lui Iisus, ale Fecioarei Maria şi ale celor doisprezece apostoli la un loc. Şi capul Sfântului Ioan Botezătorul şi Sânii Salomeii, dacă pare uşor de dus de nas. Dar convinge-l să cheltuiască bani. Mulţi bani. Atât cât e nevoie pentru o fundaţie de cercetare şi un muzeu nou. Lasă-l să-şi folosească imaginaţia, dacă are. Fondul Episcopului Migliau pentru Arheologie Biblică – vezi dacă-i place cum sună. Poate să-l scrie cu litere mari de zece picioare, dacă-i face plăcere. Totul e să-l aduci mâine dimineaţă la biroul meu, cu aerul unui om care-şi câştigă existenţa semnând cecuri.
July 31, 2025
It feels as though it should be better than it is. It has a very strong “hook” (or pre-credits tease, in movie lingo) and the sense of an overwhelming, shadowy conspiracy is well drawn as well. That having been said, the story seems often muddled and just doesn’t seem to have the sort of propulsive momentum that literary thrillers depend on. It’s occasionally a bit of a crawl to get through. Not overall bad, and certainly worth the read - but it still feels like there is a better novel in here somewhere, wanting to get out.
July 19, 2018
If you like Dan Brown, you're gonna love this one too.
July 27, 2024
Promising start, but he wrote himself into a corner, and the denouement is terrible.
November 27, 2008
Fans of Ken Follett and Umberto Eco will both enjoy Brotherhood of the Tomb. The author, Daniel Easterman, (a pseudonym), is a former professor of Islamic studies at Newcastle University who brings a great deal of biblical history and middle eastern studies to his novels.
It's difficult to review this book without giving away the plot. suffice it to say, the hero, an ex-CIA agent, who reads Aramaic, Hebrew, and assorted other languages, stumbles onto a plot which would overthrow the existing religious structure of the Catholic Church. The book begins with a Catholic Bishop and Israeli archaeologist investigating some tombs discovered during excavation for a housing development. The inscription on the tombs reveals them to be the burial place of Jesus, Mary and James. It also reveals that Jesus did not die on the cross. This information was already known to the Bishop who kills the archaeologist and reseals the tomb. The Brotherhood is a group of families who know the secret of the tomb and who want to return sacrifice to a more prominent place in the true church. Enough said. The plot winds through threads of medieval heresies and beliefs surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus. One even gets to read passages from the apocryphal gospel of James. Wonderful, literate
thriller, although not up to Eco in my view.
October 28, 2007
it's the DaVinci Code.
If you like these CIA thrillers, where people get hit over the head with pistols in the dark in one chapter, then wake up in strange farmhouses in the next, to other characters who hold court for 10 pages of exposition and conspiracy theory, then you might like this. I read the first 100 pages, then skimmed the next 50, then jumped ahead to the end and scanned for paragraphs beginning with "That's why..." These books are easy to punch out in afternoon if you need something for that purpose.
If you like these CIA thrillers, where people get hit over the head with pistols in the dark in one chapter, then wake up in strange farmhouses in the next, to other characters who hold court for 10 pages of exposition and conspiracy theory, then you might like this. I read the first 100 pages, then skimmed the next 50, then jumped ahead to the end and scanned for paragraphs beginning with "That's why..." These books are easy to punch out in afternoon if you need something for that purpose.
March 21, 2007
Even though I'm a diehard atheist, this book was quite the thriller. Lots of political intrigue and machinations within the Vatican to keep The Brotherhood, a shadowy group founded, supposedly by Joseph of Arimethea, for the purpose of keeping secret the true circumstances behind the death of Christ, under wraps. Lots of dead language fun!
November 12, 2008
Another mystery thriller involving a rogue element in the Catholic Church hiding a secret and killing people. Fast action that is not very believable. Interesting, but not the greatest read. I think I might have read a couple of his previous books, The Ninth Buddha and The Seventh Sanctuary.
August 6, 2008
This thriller revolves around the discovery of the bones of Christ and his family and what it might mean for mainstream Christianity. Silly, but lots of fun.
March 19, 2013
"La fratellanza del sepolcro"
October 30, 2013
A bit hard to follow but it was okay in the end.
Read
August 24, 2013Read it many years ago and totally enjoyed it. For me it was a great jump off point for research around many of its themes. HIGHLY RECOMENDED.
Read
March 8, 2016I liked it, especially the detail and history.
January 12, 2014
As good as Da Vinci Code!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews