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Following an unpleasant rape Dr Julia has retreated from the
world, but one fateful night changes all of that. When she
hears a gunshot she calls the police who discover an unconscious
naked man, at the scene of a murder, who is taken in and tended
by Dr Julia. He is not the only naked man found that night
and if things were not bad enough there appears to be a mysterious
storm over Chatham, one that never ends. With the phones cut
off to the outside world, can Dr Julia unravel the mystery
of the two strange men, who only speak Latin and who also
seem to know who she is?...
The
Jvlian Paradox is a novel by Kurt Otto Peterson, though
if you're looking for it you might want to ask for The
Julian Paradox, as the Roman V is our U and, if you're
that interested, their C is our K. It's a great nod to the
knowledge of the author, but I can't help thinking that the
cleverness will cut his sales, with the book being misfiled;
even the book's jacket can't make its mind up spelling it
with a V on the cover and a U on the book's sleeve.
The
novel is a supernatural mystery which throws together Republican
Rome and England during the Second World War, now there's
a combination you don't see everyday. Peterson has played
a little fast and loose with historical accuracy, though in
his defence he admits that he has changed some facts for dramatic
reasons - after all this is a novel and not a history book
and that sort of thing goes on in other media all the time.
It
is not giving away too much of the plot - as most of it is
on the book's sleeve - to say that one of the naked men is
Julia's father, separated by two thousand years and generally
when this sort of thing happens it is accompanied by mysterious
storms and the potential to change history, especially if
your father is the very famous Roman general, Julius Caesar.
In such times what you really need is a powerful Druid, who
just happens to have waited his whole life to return you to
your own time and avert an unravelling of time.
I
did have a few niggling issues with the book. The description
of 1943 Chatham as a rural village appears incorrect. I used
to live near there and it has been a military base since the
time of Elizabeth I, with a number of forts and would have
had a sizeable military presence during the war. I thought
that Julia's acceptance of her reincarnation was a bit swift.
Given that she had already been psychologically traumatised
by the rape, you would have thought, as a doctor, that she
would have questioned this, and her reaction to it, in more
depth.
The
book is extremely well written with good, believable character
development and once the plot gets going, the novel is quite
engrossing. Whether you accept the ending will be a personal
choice. The book has some nice ideas and covers so many markets
it will appeal to fans of historical novels, thrillers and
supernatural fantasy, though the heart of the book is about
the love between a father and daughter.
Charles
Packer
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