An incredibly propulsive read. Its prologue is a cascade of horror that bleeds through the rest of the book in the best way, helping to sow distrust in every direction. The tension is fantastically wrought and the book is incredibly readable, its momentum sweeping you along. Austin’s increasingly desperate confusion palpable. At its best is the helplessness he and Virgil share, this moment of unity and grief and the question of what to do. 

I wish more consideration given to the language. This is Austin’s lifeline, and what he knows best. A shame then that the first time he uses it is to greet his students with salve discipuli. Salvete is the plural. Another way to transcribe that is salvēte. I mention this as there’s a Pilgrim sign which reads ‘Iēsus Nazarēnus, Rēx Iūdaeōrum’ though otherwise the Pilgrims’ Latin isn’t transcribed that way. The lack of consistency is disappointing. As is presenting what Austin speaks as Latin. His translations require him to communicate in quite a bit of Neo-Latin. 

However, its lack of nuance is where things start to fall apart. Why are muslims cast as a uniquely dangerous? Yes. People would be unhappy having the Lord’s Prayer blared over their holy sites. They’re not the only religious group who would be. The IDF show up and are never once questioned or doubted. The only explicit mention of Jews are of Jesus, ‘King of the Jews’. Speaking as a Scot, if catholicism were empirically proven to be the true religion, the group whose reactions I’d worry about isn’t muslims, it’s christians. There is the briefest of acknowledgements of different denominations but they’re not presented as or assumed to be dangerous. And this ultimately makes the ending uncomfortable for me when Michael makes his grand gesture at the end. 

Thanks to iRead Book Tours and M.R. Leonard for the review copy. I leave this review voluntarily.