The Mystery of the Milton Manuscript

Clunky dialogue, cartoon villains, an implausible plot, and a Die Hard–level body count turn this debut’s promising Paradise Lost–linked premise into a reader’s purgatory. Keith Jessup, an American on the cusp of earning his Ph.D. from Oxford, gets sucked into unholy goings-on when his thesis adviser, Thornton Livingston, is murdered before he can deliver the much-anticipated lecture “Secrets of the Milton Manuscript,” which concerns a long-rumored but hitherto undiscovered document believed to reveal the true intent behind the poet’s masterpiece. Weeks later, another Milton scholar meets a similar fate, and Keith himself receives several not-so-subtle hints to forget about the manuscript that make him all the more determined to discover the truth about both it and the murders, even at deadly risk to himself and his college sweetheart, art restorer Joanne Farnsworth. On the plus side, Libin, a pharmaceutical researcher, playwright, and composer, does provide a fresh look at Milton and his theology. (Aug.)