Contrato con Dios. (Contract With God)
Reviewed by Liliana Wendorff, University of North Carolina at Pembroke -- Críticas, 5/1/2008
Gómez-Jurado, Juan.
Spain: El Andén, dist. by Urano Pub. 2007. 398 p. ISBN 978-84-96929-26-5. pap. $TK. FICTION
The year is 2005, and in the Jordanian dessert, an expedition is looking to find the original Ark of the Covenant, believed to hold the Ten Commandments. The varied human elements contained in the story—CIA, Blackwater, spies, powerful businessmen, Nazis, archeologists, the Mossad (secret society of the Vatican), terrorists, fanatics, and a journalist who has exclusive rights to a story of monumental proportions—as well as the conflicts among Jews, Muslims, and Christians plague Gómez-Jurado’s story with action, violence, and mystery, resembling the situation facing the world today. Gómez-Jurado’s protagonists use sophisticated technology—computers, satellite communications, modern weaponry—in their rush to find the Ark. The combination of the adventure a la Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark with aspects of today’s world is not a surprising one. By his own confession, the author spent several days during his childhood watching Spielberg’s thriller, in an attempt to distract himself from a case of the measles. This novel lends itself to be the subject of a furiously-paced movie a la Indiana Jones. Like Indiana Jones, Father Anthony Fowler (also a character in Gómez-Jurado’s first novel), double agent of the CIA and the Secret Alliance, escapes many dangers—terrorists, ants, shootings—lurking everywhere. Contract with God, enthralling reading that can be done in one sitting, will only add to the international reputation that Gómez-Jurado has enjoyed since publishing his first novel Espía de Dios (God’s Spy) in 2005. Recommended for bookstores, public libraries, undergraduate academic libraries, and for readers of all ages.
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