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Eric Van Lustbader has been writing for almost half of my life. You will find THE TESTAMENT, his new novel, on my younger son's nightstand. Ironically, my son is the same age I was when I read Lustbader's first novel, THE SUNSET WARRIOR. Like its predecessors, THE TESTAMENT is a wonderful way to begin a literary addiction.
Lustbader writes what are called --- occasionally derisively and almost always inaccurately --- "hairy-chested novels." True, they feature strong male protagonists (and, to keep things interesting, even stronger, more dangerous villains) and women with attributes that certainly lend themselves to being noticed. And while Lustbader's novels are undoubtedly plot-driven, it's simplistic to conclude that they are written at the expense of characterization.
THE TESTAMENT, among its many other attributes, balances plot and personality quite nicely. Braverman "Bravo" Shaw is the protagonist who carries the tale. We care about him, almost from the very beginning of the book, when his father, Dexter, is killed practically in front of him. What we come to learn along with Bravo is that his dad had been leading a double life --- one as husband and father and the other as a high-ranking member of a sect known as the Order of Gnostic Observatines, founded by followers of St. Francis of Assisi and driven underground centuries ago. The purpose of the Order is the preservation of ancient documents containing revelations that could rock and destroy Christianity if they were to see the light of day.
The Order also preserves a substance referred to as "The Quintessence," believed to be responsible for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Dexter, the keeper of the Order's cache, hid it where only Dexter could find it. Bravo became Dexter's successor upon his death and is charged with finding and protecting the cache. Opposing him are the Knights of St. Clement, who have been locked for centuries in a struggle against the Order and who seek The Quintessence for the Pope, who lays near death. Jenny Logan, a guardian of the Order, is assigned to protect Bravo, even as she harbors a secret from him that could rend their mutual attraction to each other asunder. Meanwhile, as he begins his race against time and the Knights, Bravo finds out that literally everything he knew about his father and his friends is wrong --- a knowledge that puts his life in terrible danger.
Lustbader is incapable of writing a dull word, and indeed THE TESTAMENT reads as if the man was hooked up to a defibrillator stuck on "high" from the first page to the last. Bravo's journey to the cache is so fraught with peril that the ultimate denouement almost seems as if it will be reduced to an afterthought. It isn't. The ending is every bit as good as everything that has gone before --- and that's saying something.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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