Sometimes reviewing a book can be difficult work, personally I often find myself scrabbling around for kind words to say about a novel which should never have been foisted upon the public. Other times a review can be so very easy to do, you simply reach for your dictionary of cliches 'A Real Page Turner' 'Fast Paced Thriller' 'Unputdownable'. I'm glad to say that Lucifer by British writer Michael Cordy falls into the latter category.

I picked up this book in preparation for a two week holiday in Brittany, I'd never heard of Michael Cordy before but I was having difficulty finding enough books to take with me, and Lucifer was being prominently displayed in my local bookstore, Hammicks in Redhill. Almost in desperation I added it to my shopping basket, lucky me!

A week or so later in an isolated Bretton Cottage I started reading the novel, slightly worried by the marketing ploy which boasted that the book was 'as good as Michael Crichton, or your money back' {I'm cynical enough to believe that any book that needs such a marketing push could potentially be a bit 'iffy'}

I needn't have worried, and equally I don't think that the marketing dept a Transworld Publishing need worry about issuing any refunds, on the strength of 'Lucifer' Mr Cordy easily assumes the title of 'Britains Michael Crichton'. Techno-thrillers don't come any more plausible, exciting, or engrossing than this. Set in the not too distant future, Cordy postulates a world dominated by super fast computers operating literally at the speed of light, a new generation of optical computers. His description of these devices is so believable, that I am willing to assume that somewhere, right now, someone is working to perfect just such a machine. The existence of these computers provides one of the two main platforms on which the plot is based, the other being the Church of the Soul Truth, a breakaway religion from the Catholic Church, headed by the Red Pope, a charismatic leader who utilises technology for his own ends, the optical computers supplying an instantaneous internet, allowing the Red Pope to reach the masses with a new E-religion, live prayer meetings delivered to millions through their computers screens. Throw into this mix of technology and religion a mysterious Bill Gates type figure who uses his billions to fund research into the afterlife, a brilliant young scientist who has inadvertently developed a device which can track the soul as it leaves the body , an assortment of well drawn secondary characters and an intelligent thought provoking plot and you have a novel unlike any you are likely to have read in a long time. Even the finale, which in many books is often anti climatic, delivers. This is a thriller which will make you think, it tackles some very complicated issues regarding choice, religion and faith, but packages these issues in a very palatable and exciting form. It is Cordy's skill at taking such complex and profound ideas and making an entertaining and thoroughly enjoyable read from them, which is most to be admired. Michael Cordy is not as good as Michael Crichton, he's better!