An Early Review for THE GNOSTIC LIBRARY

   My friend and Beta reader Ellie, who has guest posted on this blog on occasion, just sent me her review of THE GNOSTIC LIBRARY, which she read two years ago as I was writing it.  Her Amazon reviews (under the name "Dai-Keag-Ity") have graced all my previous books, and it was a thrill to read her critique of my latest effort!  I thought I would share it with all of my faithful readers here before it even gets posted on Amazon.  Here it is:

Readers, clear your schedule this weekend, because you’re in for a treat! The Gnostic Library, the fifth and newest novel of the hardest-working archaeologist, pastor, and high school history teacher in Texas, Lewis Ben Smith, has arrived as his most energetic and sure to be controversial work yet. In the words of a friend who borrowed my advanced copy: no matter what you’re expecting, you’re in for a surprise. Yes, I promise you, The Gnostic Library is a thinking person’s thriller that sneaks up on you with a jaw-dropping wallop!

In this exciting 366-page adventure the beloved Capri Team from Smith’s previous novels The Testimonium, and Matthew’s Autograph are briefly re-united - only to disperse around the globe. Josh and Isabella Parker are pursuing a four-hundred-year-old archaeological mystery uncovered on the high plains of the American Heartland, while Father Duncan MacDonald is opening an investigation amid the ancient wilds of Egypt, where the chance (or is it…?) discovery of a library of ancient Gnostic texts under the ever-shifting sands brings a team of curious experts into conflict with one of the most savage terrorist cells on the planet.

Talk about realism, the events of this novel could come straight from the headlines of the nightly news!

While easily read as a stand-alone book, those already familiar with the characters will no doubt enjoy a check-in with old friends in this third volume of the Capri Team trilogy. Readers old and new will also meet Smith’s latest creations, many likable and sure to be welcomed, but with one of them standing as the most loathsome villain this writer has yet created, a fearless terrorist warlord who arrives, AK-47 in hand, like a modern version of the desert raiders in the The Arabian Nights.

Fair warning, while the journey through these pages is always interesting, don’t be sure a happy ending for all is necessarily guaranteed.

What is promised is the kind of story that stimulates imagination and scientific curiosity alike. It is at once a mystery, a tale of archaeology and history, a reunion with some well-crafted characters who truly come across as people you’d like to know, and more so than anything Lewis Ben Smith has done since his premiere novel The Testimonium, The Gnostic Library stands as a great love story. But, men, don’t let that scare you away. There are also gunfights, kidnappings, helicopters, spy satellites, terrorists, and a strange tomb discovered on US soil that stands to re-write regional history.

Yes, this is a darn good book!