Previously, I posted reviews on Randy Singer's non-fiction book The Cross Examination of Jesus Christ and its companion release The Cross Examination of Oliver Finney. However, this novel has more in common with the non-fiction book published eight years earlier. Both The Advocate and The Cross Examination of Jesus Christ not onlydeal with Christ's trial by Pilate, but also mention the Pharisees and Herodians asking Jesus about the tax and the woman caught in adultery, and additionally mention the treason trials in Rome at that time.
Returning my focus to The Advocate, this book is unique among Randy Singer's novels on several levels:
- It's his first historical novel; all his others are contemporary. (Thus, don't expect characters from his previous stories to pop up here as they frequently do -- none of them had been born at this point.)
- I would consider this to be more of a political thriller than a legal thriller. Yes, the main character is a lawyer as Singer's main characters are (with the possible exception of "The Judge"), and yes, Singer does touch on politics and political issues, but 1st century politics has more of an emphasis than the legal side.
- This is not a simple, typical story. Not only does it span years, but it's more of a pseudo-biography than a typical novel. There isn't a typical villain -- yes, Caligula and Nero could be called villains in this story as they were in history, but most stories have a main villain who's part of the story from the beginning; not so here. Likewise, it's more episodic, with some threads reaching through the story, but not the typical plot arc.
Another item different for Singer is a list of characters
before the book. The characters have four designations: historical,
fictitious, historical but little known about, and historical but no
name given (the only one in the fourth category is the Centaurian at the
Crucifixion). The main character, Theophilus, is in the third category.
Thus, realize this is a novel, not history.
One thing that's not
typical in novels but not new to Singer is the changing Points of View.
This is his third novel told from the first person (though the first
where that character is male), but as in his second first person story,
there are sections where the first person character isn't present that
is told from a third person. The final section (the 101 short chapters
are divided into nine parts) is also third person, but indicates the
previous eight were Theophilus' memoirs.
This is not an author's
first novel. It's written by someone who knows what he's doing, enough
to journey outside the norm and pull it off, which he does in this
novel. The Advocate can fit in the genres of historical, suspense, and
political thriller (it's not quite a legal thriller in my opinion), but I
could make an argument of it fitting in the literary genre as well.
Again,
this isn't typical Randy Singer -- you may love his previous work yet
not get into this one as much. In my opinion, this is a well put
together piece of literature.
