Luxury Reading's Five Star Review of The Messiah Matrix

Review: The Messiah Matrix by Kenneth John Atchity










Reviewed by MaryLu McFall



If it weren’t for the continuing interest in the wickedness of the
Catholic Church and the on-going variety of plots imagined, we would be
forced to find another perpetual villain. Fortunately for those of us
who enjoy a good thriller with romance thrown in, the never-ending
variety of writers’ imaginations keeps giving us new ones.



The Messiah Matrix has a plot with all the ingredients to keep us turning pages.
A lovely archaeologist with two assistants finds a treasure in the
harbor by the ancient port of Caesarea. It is a rare gold coin. Emily
Scelba is convinced the coin is authentic, but calls upon a former lover
(probably never a really good idea to trust one of them) for help in
proving her find authentic. In a somewhat obvious move, he disappears
when the value of the coin is deemed to be priceless.



Then we have Father Ryan McKeown, S.J., the tousled brown-haired
priest (a Jesuit—in a bit of rather timely choice), who is in his
cassock and life of celibacy somewhat reluctantly. He is drawn into a
rapidly escalating plot of murder, Vatican politics, and danger. When he
meets Emily after the one man they both knew turns up dead, the road to
a solution to the many problems presented becomes rocky indeed. Make no mistake about this book; it’s a well-written thriller with a deep secret which would shock the world. Although at this point in history, nothing the Vatican or the Catholic Church does shocks all that much.



This secret has been kept for hundreds of years; the Jesuits (known
as the scholars, educators, and sometime rebels of the church) are
hell-bent to keep the secret until such time….well, such time that it
would be convenient for a power grab.



Emily and Ryan try to stay one step ahead of the bad guys. It’s hard
to tell who that is and it seems to depend on the mood of the day. Ryan
struggles with his crisis of faith and his attraction to Emily. She
moans to herself that the sexiest man she has met in years is a man who
has sworn his life to his order and to a life of celibacy. Thankfully,
the author does not descend to prurient tastes and manages to escalate
the sexual tension without resorting to anything other than the sins of
thought and withheld desire. Although the two are trapped once (more
than once) and do end up in each other’s arms exchanging a smoldering
kiss. Much to their individual dismay.



The author has an impressive background as a scholar. It is obvious
in the history that is part and parcel of this story. Augustus Caesar,
Pontius Pilate, Roman history of the time of Jesus, and Jesus himself
are brought together. But that is the part of the novel that may cause
many readers to pause. The parallels between the life of Augustus and
Jesus are clearly intended to shock and surprise. The Roman Emperor had
himself declared a god, his birth a miracle of conception, and
supposedly pulled off miracles of his own.



The introduction of historical facts is covered rather slickly by
having Emily tell the skeptic Father Ryan all the “facts” in the form of
stories. Emily herself went to a school taught by Jesuits, but has long
since left the church. She has a great deal of historical knowledge
which continues to shock Ryan. The plot proceeds at a good pace right
down to the last chapters. The ending struck me as contrived, and the
stretch when the secret is revealed is almost too unbelievable to
consider. But that’s from one who also left the church. Those first
eight grades in Parochial Catholic School leave an indelible mark.





Rating:  



MaryLu McFall is the author of A Little Karmic Murder, an eBook
that is available on Kindle, Nook, and all other electronic readers. She
lives, works part-time at an independent bookstore, and will soon have
her Young Adult novel, The Family Lancaster, published as an eBook as
well.