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In the Pantheon of literary genres, international thrillers have their own wing. There, encased in sepulchers with headstones writ large, stand names such as Robert Ludlum, John le Carré, Alistair MacLean and more. Their stores cross continents and languages to snare readers in compelling tales of intrigue. In the world’s they create, knowledge is power, and treachery always lurks within treaties between nations and often within promises between friends.
Now, former New York City Police Officer, Michael Solomon, has turned his experienced ear for criminality, corruption, and conspiracies, to the world of high-flying deception in his debut novel, The Conversion Prophecy. Not the least bit intimidated by the renowned authors that have come before him, he confidently stakes his own claim to the genre with a globe-hopping tale of multinational mystery and suspense.
It all begins in the year 2024. World peace has virtually been achieved. Violent terrorism is a thing of the past. Countries no longer settle their differences with armies and armaments. Corporations actually cooperate rather than compete. Consumers like and believe in the companies they buy from. Citizens collectively trust their elected officials. The stock markets of the world are at record highs. Has utopia finally been achieved? Or does a somewhat closer look reveal that perhaps nothing is as it seems.
Solomon’s story hits the tarmac running. With staccato prose, free of any cloying sentimentality that might slow the pace, he whisks us through the untimely death of the Vice President of the United States. Then he flashes readers back to an Indonesian Mosque years earlier, where clandestine plans are put in place by fanatical conspirators to take advantage of just such an opening in the highest echelons of American government. The author uses this shifting time technique to adroitly move multiple flesh and blood pawns across a vast transnational chessboard. But a lot more than a game is going on here, the results of which could be cataclysmic.
The players on Solomon’s continually changing battlefield include Secret Service Agents under the gun, career politicians with much to gain and more to lose, world leaders held hostage to a diabolical scheme, devout Moslems and devoted Jews, young men thrust into older men’s hatreds, plus an appropriate smattering of stone cold spies.
Revealing too much of the plot would deprive you of much of the fun inherent in peeling back one layer after another of Solomon’s fast-moving tale of assassination, infiltration, and the potential annihilation of the world as we know it. Suffice it to say that readers will be jetted to exotic locales, ensconced in expensive hotels, piped aboard luxurious yachts, and fêted with the finest food and wine. There will also be initiations into secret societies, closed-door meetings with the CIA and the Israeli Mossad, and financial maneuvering that brings the world to the brink of collapse.
If you’re the type who can pack your willing suspension of disbelief along with your appetite for adventure, then you’ll likely find The Conversion Prophesy a whirlwind excursion you won’t want to miss.