Spoiler: According to the Book of Ben

by Amanda Prantera

It was after his friend Adam had died mysteriously that Ben started to hear whiffling noises in the night. The two noviciate priests had roomed side by side at their seminary in Rome, the cool, sardonic Adam becoming a mentor to the younger Ben. Did Adam jump from the parapet, Ben wonders, or was he pushed? Ben discerns that the nocturnal whiffling is accompanied by a frantic quest through Adam's computer. Meanwhile, he finds three discs taped underneath a shelf in Adam's cupboard, and gradually he is lead into the terrifying labyrinth of his friend's legacy Ben can hardly believe that Adam can have become so caught up in the arcane prophecies of the Antichrist - or Spoiler - but now Ben too is prompted into desperate clandestine action. Amanda Prantera's gripping new novel takes us to the wilder shores of adolescence and Catholicism.

256 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2004

Reviews

[Chloe Robertson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bought this book in a charity shop years ago and wanted to read something easy and fairly short over the Christmas holidays alongside revision. It was disappointing but I managed to get through it relatively quickly which was nice.

The plot was promising and had potential but only the main character was developed fully? When a murderer (of sorts) was revealed, it wasn’t exciting at all because the character was just a name.

The ending was also very open ended and vague, overall disappointing book but wasn’t awful/difficult to read.

[Michael Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though this book has no marauding giant bugs, absolutely no young folks getting all militant with the same huge insects and no obvious science-fiction tropes to speak of, it still reminded me (perhaps puzzlingly)of "Starship Troopers", in that it had one general all-purpose idea which it pursued energetically and deliberately right through to its essentially open end. On that level, I couldn't fault it, but those in need of a meatier feast might find it lacking in parts.