Books Reviews

The Aegean Prophecy – Book Review

By Angela Youngman Feb 7, 2011, 16:22 GMT

St John wrote the apocalyptic Book of Revelation over 1900 years ago in a cave on Greece\'s eastern Aegean island of Patmos. When a revered monk from that holy island\'s thousand-year-old monastery is murdered in Patmos\'s town square during Easter Week, Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis is called upon to find the killer. Andreas\'s impolitic search for answers brings him face-to-face with a scandal haunting the world\'s oldest surviving monastic community. ...more

A monk is murdered in the middle of the town square of Patmos during the Holy Week celebrations.  Chief Inspector Kaldis, head of the Greek Police Special Crimes Division, and his sidekick Yianni Kouros are called in to investigate only to find that the body has been removed to the monastery ready for burial and the crime scene non-existent. 

No one wants to disrupt the Holy Week celebrations - and the large numbers of tourists expected on the island.  Hampered just as much as helped by church and police officials; Kaldis does not have an easy task. 

Soon it becomes clear that the monk had been asking some awkward questions about leadership among the monks on the historic monastery settlements of Mount Athos; questions that link into Russian and Balkan politics and people who would prefer to remain unknown to the authorities. 

With one of the key participants out of touch with the world until the end of Holy Week time is short - especially when it becomes clear that another murder may be on the cards, and no one wants to intervene.  I had never come across Jeffrey Siger's books until I picked up The Aegean Prophecy - but was quickly hooked. 

It made a fascinating read.  I just couldn't put it down.  His characters live and breathe, and you cannot help but smile at the ingenious ways that Kaldis and Kouros manage to deal with political and ecclesiastical difficulties by getting involved with Russian gangsters!