#Aletheia #NetGalley
It is no secret that BEN-HUR is one of, if not my favourite pieces of Biblical fiction. The story of the Judean prince who is wrongly accused of sedition and sent to the galleys, as his family is sent to the dungeons, and his long, arduous road to freedom that intersects with Jesus, is an all-time great. So, naturally, when I heard about the fact that there is a sequel to the original Lew Wallace novel, written by Luigi A. Kohli. Let me tell you, I have never waited for the approval of the request for a book ever since I became a NetGalley member.
The novel comes with a very interesting question: how and why was Pilate erased from history. And the answer is as compelling as it can be.
Mr. Kohli has come up with a novel that takes the narrative framework of the original story by Wallace, and built a blockbuster conspiracy thriller as pulse-pounding as Game of Thrones, replete with betrayals, vivid, cinematic dialogue(this Pilate is the most well-written version of the character I have come across in recent fiction), reunions with beloved characters(loved seeing Judah, now Arrius, and Simonides, again), introductions of new ones(loved meeting Michtam, son of Malluch, servant of Simonides), and plenty of Biblical connections that the author deftly weaves through the tale, which I will leave the reader the pleasure to discover. The villains, Valeria Messalina, and Caligula, were on par too, and I can totally see this as a big-screen spectacle. This masterpiece of Biblical adventure thriller fiction gets a ten out of five. Mr. Kohli, I cannot wait for the sequel. Bra-vo! Thank you, NetGalley, Luigi A. Kohli and Troubadour Publishing! I cannot wait to see how the story goes on in the sequel!