The Compass Master

Dan Brown fans looking for similar fare could do worse than this overlong religious thriller from Soister. Six years earlier, when she was a grad student in Chicago, Layla Daltry caused a stir with the public presentation of her master's thesis. Its argument was leaked to the press, turning what should have been an ordinary lecture into a media circus. Daltry posited that the Book of Revelation was influenced both by paganism and "opium-induced subjective delusion." The ensuing violent furor led her to shelve academia and accept an offer from Sotheby's to seek out lost antiquities. This new profession turns dangerous after Maeve Bryson, an elderly scholar and close friend, dies. Bryson's husband tells Daltry that Maeve's "secret" has been stolen, and he asks for help, starting a chain of events that puts Daltry in the crosshairs of assassins in the service of a covert fundamentalist organization connected with the Knights of Malta. The frenetic action sequences are familiar, but unlike many Da Vinci Code wannabes, the internal logic holds together.