Which reminds me, there’s a scene in which someone loses a baby, which I felt wasn’t dealt with as well as it could have been. Even though the majority of it is all about action and the oddities of religion, there’s also a bunch of other stuff along with great characterisation and an ensemble cast where no one is safe. The thing about this book is that there’s so much going on here that there’s a little bit of something for everyone.

I suppose it was okay though, and it was kind of interesting to look at the death of love and what happens when a married couple no longer trusts each other.

I wasn’t particularly keen on the secondary romance plot either, which didn’t really need to be there. With that said, there were also a few things that I wasn’t too keen on, including the ending, which sort of just petered out. It was made even better by the fact that those sorts of ethical and philosophical questions came about at the same time as an action adventure novel was happening. A few of the characters said that there would have to be something that broke the laws of physics for them to conclude that there was a god, but for me, I’m so atheist that I’d just conclude that we had more to learn about the laws of physics.īut even with that said, I thought it was fascinating that the book raised those kinds of questions and it’s always a lot of fun to read something that has that effect. For example, what kind of absolute proof would I need to conclude that there was a god. It was kind of interesting to pick this up as an atheist and to ask myself a lot of those questions. And yet at the same time, it doesn’t feel preachy. He’s clearly asked himself a lot of the questions that the novel raises, just so that he can write with a little more conviction. That’s a good thing because the Da Vinci Code has the edge at being the Da Vinci Code, and this just has a few similarities whilst simultaneously setting out to achieve something different.Ībsolute Proof has its roots in an idea that came to James many years ago, and I got the vibe that he’s put a lot of thought into it, and not just when it comes to the plotting and the characterisation.

It has that same kind of twisty-and-turny vibe that made Dan Brown’s stuff such a success, only Peter James is a better writer. On the front of the book, it’s compared to the Da Vinci Code, and it’s pretty easy to see why. And even then, it could be just some random dude from the same kind of time period. The title “absolute proof” comes from the idea that there could be some absolute proof that proves the existence of a god, although I’d have to say that the majority of the book doesn’t necessarily align with that.Įven though the characters and the narrative keep talking about all of the different gods and faiths that are out there, it’s actually more about absolute proof of Jesus. This book is quite a “me” book because of the themes and the ideas in it.

James herbert domain review