When the first sentence of a novel is about a little lad who strays into a cave led by the smell of blood, you guess where you are heading though the boy in question has no clue. The soaked-in-blood cave in the island of Jeju off the coast of South Korea is a great locale to start off a typical Hollywoodian thriller like this one. The setting is mysterious, to say the least. The gory massacre and the ‘covert’ operation gone horribly wrong sets the mood for a night of chills, thrills and coffee.

There are two somewhat Men-in-Black kind of detectives, Payne and Jones (who made an appearance in the Sign of the Cross, the first book by Kuzneski) and a pretty translator of Asian origin — all three trying to figure out (don’t ask what ... nobody seems to know at this stage).

The first half of the movie, sorry book, is spent racing along with Payne and Jones and the disjointed clues they get in South Korea about an international terrorism plot (can you expect a thriller without one nowadays?) in far away Mecca. The second half is how they get into the holy city to stop the unholy happenings and whether they really succeed in doing so.

It is all rather unsettling and mired in the beginning, what with the action shifting clunkily between the detectives in South Korea, a flashback about a would-be terrorist and an archaeologist probing the depths of Mecca (near the Grand Mosque, no less). But once you have the hang of the story and your mind stops pondering on where it is going, it gets way more interesting.

The nuggets about the city of Mecca are fascinating, especially the authentic details about the construction of the huge Abraj Al Bait Towers across the Great Mosque, the Bin Laden family and the fact that Uncle Mac Donald beams down on the devotees. There are some grouses though. The plot is sometimes too pat on. The humour is too shallow and so obviously not there. When the last chapters approach, the pieces quickly (too quickly) fit into the puzzle. But still, the story holds on. Enough to pass a wintry night.

Book: Sword of God
Author: Chris Kuzneski
Publishers: Penguin
Price: 6.99 pounds sterling
Pages: 423