Chasing Eden
by S.L. Linnea
Published by St. Martin's Paperbacks
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Reviewed by Beth Cummings
The year is 2003, and the place is Iraq, and amid the warfare a mystery begins to engulf Army chaplain, Major Jaime Richards. She is on her way to join her support unit when trouble on the road waylays their small convoy. While her chaplain assistant attempts to fix the problem, a person appears out of the sandstorm.
Oddly enough, this stranger is Adara, a woman who was a good friend of Jaime's during her year at Princeton Seminary studying world religions. Adara is injured, but she manages to give Jaime a peculiar message. "Find the 4th Sister. Take home the lost sword." Adara gives her a pendant on a silver chain and a numbered code as to where to leave it--where the sister points. She also tells Jaime they are driving into an ambush.
As they prepare to move forward, another stranger, a man dressed in the black robes of Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen, grabs Jaime. Quick response from her assistant gets her released, but then the violet-eyed stranger grabs Adara, mentions Jaime's name, then snaps Adara's neck. Jaime is totally puzzled. Who was this? How did he know her name? Why kill Adara? And most of all, what is the meaning of Adara's last message?
The plot twists and turns as Jaime discovers that she is looking for the ancient Garden of Eden--presumably at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in southern Iraq.
This novel grabs the reader and races along at break-neck speed. It has certain similarities to Dan Brown's popular The DaVinci Code in that knowledge of ancient cultures, ability to understand coded messages, an ancient, secret religious/power organization (in this case the Ancestral Heritage Society) are entwined in the plot.
Coincidences abound--almost too many to keep the story believable. Yet the main characters are likeable and the plot begins to feel plausible as S.L. Linnea keeps the reader in suspense until the very end. However I thought it was hard to keep track of all the extraneous characters since they appear only rarely.
Armchair Interviews says: Another thrilling fiction focused around ancient cultures.