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The marks of Cain / Tom Knox.

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: New York : Viking, 2010.Edition: First American editionDescription: vii, 438 pages ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780670021918 (hbk.)
  • 0670021911
Subject(s): Genre/Form: LOC classification:
  • PR6070.H6555 M37 2010
Summary: When young lawyer David Martinez receives an ancient map from his dying grandfather, the mysteries of his past begin to open up before him. The map leads David into the heart of the dangerous Basque mountains, where a genetic curse lies buried and a frightening secret about the Western world's past is hidden. Meanwhile, London journalist Simon Quinn may have found his big break. A wealthy, elderly woman has been murdered in the most horrific fashion, and another homicide soon follows. Both victims came from villages in the Basque region, both were interred at a top-secret Nazi camp, both have been silenced for what they know about the experiments conducted on the Basques, the Jews, and a dwindling mystical tribe of pre-Caucasian locals called Cagots.
Fiction notes: Click to open in new window
Holdings
Item type Current library Collection Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Fiction Davis (Central) Library Fiction Collection Fiction Collection KNO 1 Available T00499722
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A thrilling and startling novel from the author of the international bestseller The Genesis Secret

When David Martinez, a young lawyer, receives an ancient map from his dying grandfather, the mysteries of his past begin to open up before him. The map leads David into the heart of the dangerous Basque mountains, where a genetic curse lies buried and a frightening secret about the Western world's past is hidden.

Meanwhile, London journalist Simon Quinn may have found his big break. A wealthy, elderly woman has been murdered in the most horrific fashion, and another homicide soon follows. Both victims came from villages in the Basque region, both were interred at a top-secret Nazi camp, both have been silenced for what they know about the experiments conducted on the Basques, the Jews, and a dwindling mystical tribe of pre-Caucasian locals called Cagots.

From the North Sea islands to the Arizona desert, from the graveyards of the Basque countryside to the heart of colonial Africa, Martinez's and Quinn's quests intersect to reveal the shocking roots of racial persecution, human violence, and war.

The Genesis Secret -already in its fourth hardcover printing and appearing on several bestseller lists-immediately established Tom Knox as a searing, brilliant new voice in commercial fiction. The Marks of Cain dares to raise the bar even higher and promises to be an even greater success.

When young lawyer David Martinez receives an ancient map from his dying grandfather, the mysteries of his past begin to open up before him. The map leads David into the heart of the dangerous Basque mountains, where a genetic curse lies buried and a frightening secret about the Western world's past is hidden. Meanwhile, London journalist Simon Quinn may have found his big break. A wealthy, elderly woman has been murdered in the most horrific fashion, and another homicide soon follows. Both victims came from villages in the Basque region, both were interred at a top-secret Nazi camp, both have been silenced for what they know about the experiments conducted on the Basques, the Jews, and a dwindling mystical tribe of pre-Caucasian locals called Cagots.

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Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Knox (The Genesis Secret), a would-be Dan Brown, bangs out a jumbled man-on-the-run story. A mysterious map stirs up trouble for American David Martinez, while a British journalist investigates a series of gruesome murders. Basque terrorists, a mysterious woman, Nazi doctors, and radical Catholic conservatives come together in a stew with too many ingredients and not enough flavor. Verdict Buy if you've got the extra bucks, and recommend only to readers with strong stomachs. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Two strangers, American David Martinez and Englishman Simon Quinn, become involved in two apparently unconnected strands of what's revealed as one unified conspiracy in Knox's problematic second thriller, which like his first, Genesis, casts recent human evolution in an unorthodox light. At the urging of his late grandfather, Martinez sets out to learn his family's true history, while Quinn looks into a series of brutal murders involving victims connected to the Basque regions of Spain and France. Both men find answers in the tumultuous history of the Pyrenees and Namibia, answers with implications so terrible that the Catholic Church is willing to conspire with a murderous Basque terrorist to conceal them. Repeated violent confrontations with supposedly deadly assassins somehow never quite result in the protagonists' deaths. That Knox, the pseudonym of British journalist Sean Thomas, supplies a "rational" basis for the Nazi genocide may offend some readers. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

David Martinez is shocked to discover that his recently deceased grandfather has left him a small fortune. But there's one proviso: David must travel to Spain, to Basque Country, where he is to find a certain man and show him a certain map. Meanwhile, journalist Simon Quinn lucks into the story of a lifetime: someone has tortured and murdered two elderly women whose only connection appears to be a unique physical deformity. His investigation leads him deep into the Basque region. For most of the book, Knox is telling two separate stories, David's and Simon's; this isn't one of those thrillers where two strangers team up to solve a central mystery. Each has his own mystery to solve (David's involves his own past and the long-ago death of his parents), but the plots are intertwined, and slowly, with hints about an old Nazi concentration camp, medical experiments, and a missing geneticist, the reader sees the pieces come together. An intriguing, well-told story.--Pitt, David Copyright 2010 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

An unattached London lawyer and company follow a strange map to a dark secret. After his grandfather died, David Martinez was finally as alone as he'd felt his entire life. He had no other family and knew nothing about his roots. But soon after the funeral, he receives some shocking news: His seemingly poor grandfather has left him $2 million and a strange map, on the condition that he travel to Basque Country to meet with a man named Jose Garovillo. After arriving, his attempts to locate Garovillo in a bar lead to a near-fatal encounter with an ETA terrorist named Miguel, but he is saved at the last minute by Amy Myerson, an attractive teacher who briefly dated Miguel before realizing he was a violent psychopath. Amy, a friend of Garovillo (who happens to be Miguel's father), arranges a meeting, where Garovillo informs David that David's grandfather was a Basque. He advises David to forget about the map, because... But before he can reveal more, Miguel arrives and begins to chase David and Amy all around Basque Country and beyond, as they ignore the old man's advice and follow the map. Meanwhile, Simon Quinn, a London-based freelance journalist, covers a series of murders that seem to have something to do with the Cagots, a long-persecuted and nearly extinct ethnic minority from Basque Country. His investigation puts him in contact with David and Amy, and together, facing danger at every turn, they must uncover a centuries-old and well-protected secret, the exposure of which could really muck things up for racial and ethnic harmony worldwide. In his debut novel, The Genesis Secret (2009), Knox (whose real name is Sean Thomas) crafted a few tensely atmospheric and absorbing opening chapters before a series of transparent advance-the-plot-at-all-costs coincidences irreparably sunk the narrative. The well-done atmospherics appear here (although in shorter patches, and less well-done), but so too do the lame shortcuts. Worse, the charactersespecially Davidare paper-thin, and the climax features a plot twist that most readers will have seen coming from way, way off.Weak and unpersuasive. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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