ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 7, 1996 TAG: 9604050144
SECTION: BOOKS PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: BOOK REVIEW
SOURCE: REVIEWED BY PAUL DELLINGER
THE RESURRECTIONIST. By Thomas F. Monteleone. Warner. $19.95.
Tom Flanagan, a charismatic U.S. senator from Maryland, is far from an admirable protagonist as Monteleone's novel opens. Despite his mistress and his cynicism and other shortcomings, he looks to be a good bet for the next president - until a plane crash in which his campaign manager dies, and Flanagan, reaching out to him instinctively, brings the man back to life.
Even Flanagan can't accept it, at first, until he tests his newfound power in the hospital where he and the manager are taken, and cures a young boy of cancer.
Suddenly, he and his lovely doctor, Estela Barreo, find themselves on the run from another powerful senator who wants to assassinate his presidential rival, a secret Pentagon agency which wants to use his talent for government purposes, agents of the Vatican who want to find out if God is working miracles through him, his resurrected campaign manager who wants him to share his gift with the world, the media and an enigmatic presence in his own mind which might be God or God's exact opposite.
Monteleone takes his story way beyond its fascinating premise, and nothing - including Flanagan's supposed gift - turns out to be quite what it seems. Against a backdrop of conspirators and secret government power brokers that would make Oliver Stone feel vindicated, the novel twists and turns into a roller-coaster conclusion with a real-life media icon as part of its fast finish, segueing right into millennial changes which, it is to be hoped, reside only in Monteleone's imagination.
Paul Dellinger covers Pulaski County and Southwest Virginia for this newspaper.
LENGTH: Short : 40 linesby CNB