Jeffrey Small

While it contained more aspects of a thrill ride than I originally expected, this book put me in mind of Dan Brown's Robert Langdon. As scholars seek truth and history, there are spiritual aspects of their findings that can never be fully or adequately explained for everyone. Growing up between the Jewish and Catholic faiths, I naturally found the overlapping commonalities and took great comfort in them. This book presents an expansion of these commonalities to Eastern religions that I find thrilling and personally enlightening. This perspective speaks directly to my sensibilities. Well written and not in any way preachy, I thoroughly enjoyed each moment of the main characters' journey.… (més)

The back of my copy of this book asks, “What if you controlled the power to see God?” That idea, that tantalizing premise, is why I chose this book. That question was never answered, or even addressed, though, because this book has little to do with any religious miracles or experiences, really, and is much more of a standard hero/heroine running away from the bad guys type thriller.

And it’s a LONG thriller. The dramatic tension is barely maintained – as I neared the end – I picked the book up three nights in a row thinking that I would finally get to the dramatic climax and finish it – only to set it down again with heavy lids and pages still to go.

At the very end of the book, there is a passage that echoes what I thought this book could have been about. A nun who is a test subject for “Logos” (the program/machine that simulates a religious experience) writes a letter to one of the creators of the machine. “I have spent a lifetime of contemplation searching for a connection to the Father. I tasted brief experiences of the Divine during times of quiet prayer or solitary walks through our gardens, but your Logos opened my mind in a way I’d never imagined possible.”…”I’m joyous that I can now see the infinite nature of God, a nature that encompasses all that I am and was, an infinite nature that I participate in”.

Instead of glimpses of the Divine, the reader gets, “She reacted on instinct. Without knowing what or who she saw, she dropped the tweezers and slammed the bathroom door closed. A howl of pain pierced through the wood panels. Four male fingers twitched inside the doorframe at the level of her nose. They blazed an angry red. The door shook violently.”

I wish “The Jericho Deception” was more awe-inspiring, was more eye opening to the reader. I wish that instead of conspiracies, lumbering villains, heroes and heroines that connect to one another far too fast – that the reader was left with a sense of wonder, a sense of an amazing experience just beyond our grasp.… (més)

Jeffrey Small takes an intriguing idea, that stimulation of a certain area of the brain produces mystical sensations, and provides a thrilling read. From an Ivy League research lab to a CIA black op in the Middle East; from a sad, boring, research professor to Indiana Jones; this fast-paced story raises thought-provoking questions regarding the basis of religious thought, morality limits in fighting terrorism, and fundamentally how one handles and manages research on brain control.

I received a free copy of The Jericho Deception through Goodreads First-reads.
… (més)