The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud - Julia Navarro

By Avalyn Beare

There may be many of you out there who are still captivated by the religious suspense genre. For you then, The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud will seem a valuable addition to the collection. Stemming from a deliberate fire in a Cathedral in which a man with no tongue is burned alive, the novel delves into the history and the mystery of the Holy Shroud of Christ.

It switches chapter by chapter, at one moment speculating on the inaccessible journey of the Shroud through history, the next following the Arts Crime Department as they uncover the modern day mystery.

The story is intriguing and layered and the explanation for the reports that the Shroud only dates back to the 14th Century is almost conceivable.

This I hope will satisfy any of the religious suspense fanatics. However, many of you may feel like me, that this genre really has had it’s hay-day. Too many of these novels are sneaking into the party with the big guns of fiction, hanging tightly to the coat tails of Dan Brown and Ian Caldwell.

Yes I did find the plot intriguing, but so much is poured into the layers of storytelling that the whole book suffers. The characters are boring and predictable, all with seemingly perfect wives that they love dearly.

The chief of the operation seems a kindly old gent, loved by his staff and hardly capable of comprehending the case he is involved in, let alone solving it.

The stereotypes forced upon the characters are embarrassing; the English are usually out hunting or drinking afternoon tea. The jumps through history between each chapter are clumsy and often so confusing that it is necessary to look back chapters to remember what’s going on. The translation is weak; the punctuation throughout is wrong and descriptive passages are made up of hundreds of four word sentences. However, the dialogue seems realistic and natural, usually the hardest part to translate.

Overall, The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud is quite obviously a buy at the airport lose on the plane kind of book. The story is easy to get wrapped up in, and shows some distinctly impressive depth and awareness to fact, but it is hard to ignore the other embarrassing failings. Sure, this is an International Bestseller, but pretty much everything of this genre is these days. This book should not have been translated; it has weakened it beyond retribution.