Book Review: The Compostela Cube, by Paul Cavilla

So many thrillers revolve around conspiracies--books where action and mystery intertwine in a seamless whole. Fans of anything by Dan Brown will be familiar with The Compostela Cube's pattern--a history buff unravels an ancient puzzle surrounding a priceless artifact. The mythology surrounding the titular cube in Paul Cavilla's book is intriguing, yet grounded in the reality. But what doesn't feel grounded is the rest of the story--where flat characters battle ridiculous antagonists with the fate of all mankind hanging in the balance.

Look! The all-seeing eye of the Illuminati!

The story begins promisingly enough: with a professor and a priest attending an exorcism at the bedside of a comatose hermaphrodite, whose death foreshadows a coming darkness. Doctor Natasha Rossi--whose beauty will be mentioned much more than her Ph.D., is restoring artifacts in her shop. Adventurous archaeologist Gabriel Parker breaks into a drug lord's castle to steal the Cube of Compostela, which, according to his late adoptive father's journal, holds the key to his destiny. And Christian Antov, a wealthy but abused young man, has just learned his family's wealth and power comes from a diabolical deal struck eons ago. The atmosphere reminded me of Indiana Jones and The DaVinci Code. All eyes are focused on the mysterious Cube, and it's up to Natasha and Gabriel to protect it from the forces of evil as the world erupts in chaos around them.

The best part of this book, and the only part that kept me reading, was the mystery of the Cube. Cavilla shuffles around several of the major monotheistic heresies into an knot that's quite fun to try and puzzle out. Some of the artifacts and ancient booby traps the character encounters are intriguing, puzzling, and draw on the reader to figure them out. However, the interesting psuedo-history is pushed aside in many places by the chaos raging across the world as the shadowy Vanderhoff Group, a secret world government, enacts its plan to start World War Three in hopes of pushing the world to the brink of unifying under regional dictators.

While the possessed Christian Antov can be genuinely frightening, I felt like over a third of the book focused on him. At times, he felt like a cartoon villain, who went off on lengthy monologues about how humans were sheep who needed to bow to their rightful masters and such. And the ideas behind the Vanderhoff Group seemed a little ridiculous--no matter how the author tries to justify it, it's a stretch to say that one entity could hold the reins of power in the world while still going unnoticed, especially when that group is giving orders to the President of the United States. Lip service is given to the crash of the American economy, but the world where the story begins simply feels far to close to our own to justify this massive leap. And when the zombies come out? The plot grows weirder with every passing page, and it gets harder and harder to believe in the author's world.

Furthermore, Gabriel and Natasha are hardly interesting. The second they meet, they fall in love. No matter how must destiny is supposed to be pulling them together, no couple is perfect. You'd think they'd chafe at knowing their romantic lives were out of their own control, but both of them seem perfectly fine being attached to a perfect stranger. And Natasha has no personality traits next to her beauty. While romantic leads in thrillers don't always need to be deep, they should at least have other interests besides the male lead. Natasha's background in artifact preservation rises up whenever a handy piece of exposition is needed, but she rarely displays any passion for anything but Gabriel.

While perhaps unavoidable in a book about saving humanity from damnation, this book contains very little moral grey area. It provokes one of my pet peeves in a scene where the good guys gather from all over the world and instantly become close friends (seriously, would it kill these groups to have internal struggles?) and  despite all the turmoil happening in the world, our protagonists have it pretty easy--a prophetic vision tells an old nun in their group that they should pack their things before descending into the catacombs, because they won't be returning. Because when thousands of people are dying all over the world, God (the author, in this case) won't let his precious protagonists go without a pair of dry socks. There's simply got to be a better way of ensuring your characters have the supplies they need.

There's a good amount of wit in these pages, especially from the elderly priests and nuns who accompany Natasha and Gabriel on their journey. The action scenes are well written, and the ancient artifacts fascinating.  But by trying to make the stakes global, Cavilla looses realism, which is key even in fantasy. Just telling us about conflicts around the globe doesn't make sense--we need to see those conflicts reflected in the microcosm of the characters lives.

My rating? As a thriller, three and a half stars. As a novel, three.

You can purchase The Compostela Cube here. You can also find my novel, Iceclaw, here.