I stayed up late last night to finish Kathy Reichs' Cross Bones. One thing about these religious thrillers - you really want to finish the book! I was disappointed, however. The middle of the book was gripping stuff. First one set of bones might be Jesus Christ, then after that is disproved, bang, there's almost magically another set of possible Jesus Christ bones. But in the end, Reichs copped out and destroyed BOTH sets of bones before analysis could be finished.
   We're left with the idea that yes, Jesus may have had siblings, and maybe there were Holy Family members at Masada, which it sounds potentially like an explosive concept to the Jewish people but perhaps not much to the Western reader. On the other hand, supposedly the bones of Mary the mother of Jesus were there. Wasn't she taken to Heaven bodily in Catholic doctrine, therefore leaving no mortal body just like her son? So that's explosive in its way, but never brought up as an issue.
   I'm blogging about this because yesterday's blog seems to have generated some interest. I guess for me, I'm a lot more compelled by a thriller that asks questions if the author answers the story questions at the end. And sure, we don't have any answers to these questions except by faith, but surely for the novel's sake she could have come up with something!
   For my own writing, perhaps this is telling me it is best not to use explosive topics to paint a not-very-important character. Is it cheating to use something so important to define the minor? Small characters don't have room in a novel to defend themselves!

 

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