Book 16

Daughter of God by Lewis Perdue

In response to a comment from a poster who claimed to be Mr. Perdue himself, I ordered and read Daughter of
God. Unfortunately for Mr. Perdue, I came to the same conclusion regarding plagiarism by Dan Brown from The Daughter of God that I reached for The Da Vinci Legacy. Even more unfortunate for Mr. Perdue, the court agreed with my conclusion as well.

However, regardless of allegations of plagiarism, like the Da Vinci Legacy, I sincerely enjoyed Daughter of God. The background seemed much better researched than Dan Brown's works and the discussion was much more intellectual. In particular I found Mr. Perdue's treatment of the evolution of God-gender and the nature of faith to be on a cerebral level that Dan Brown's works fail to reach.

Additionally, while Daughter of God successfully weaves themes that are intellectually challenging and interesting, this success is not attained at the expense of plot. Rather, the plot is fast moving and interesting with plenty of gun fights, escapes, captures, murders, travel, near-misses and romance. If Purdue lacks the smooth plot flow of Dan Brown, it is only because the plot is broken up with discussions of historical background and philosophical musings that in this reader's opinion add to, rather than detract from, the overall story.

I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to those looking for a quick good read in the religious-thriller genre. In fact,I would recommend it over Dan Brown's Da Vince Code, if only because I find Dan Brown's complicated fictitious puzzles to be less interesting than Perdue's discussion of the true-to-life puzzles of religious evolution and individual faith.