The Genizah Codex
The book opens with an intriguing scene set in the present day, depicting a tense encounter between one of the protagonists, Catherine, and an Israeli customs official. Soon after, she meets with a researcher studying a newly unearthed scroll pertaining to a mysterious female philosopher. Mere hours after their meeting, the researcher is murdered.
Meanwhile, in the ancient Holy Land during the reign of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, an academy of women devote themselves to studying and preserving the writings of a fictional female philosopher, Sophia Zealotes, introduced in Helme’s previous book, The Lost Wisdom of the Magi.
In the Middle Ages, we follow a philologist called Hugues who goes to the Holy Land seeking rare scrolls. Across the centuries, murders, lootings, family secrets, hidden treasures, and religious conflicts abound. By the end, though, everything comes together quite tidily.
The prose could have used a little more polishing, to clear up some of the repetition and confusing phrasing. Overall, the story is more of a draw than the prose styling. A few more rounds of revisions would have really brought this manuscript to its full potential.
As a language geek and Classics major, I particularly appreciated Ms. Helme’s occasional use of Latin, Hebrew, and Greek terminology. This provides an air of authenticity without perplexing readers who lack knowledge of these languages, because she specifically chooses words with English cognates, such as Christiani or ekklesia. There are also some snippets of Arabic and Hebrew in the present-day scenes and French in the Medieval ones, which go untranslated but do not hinder the reader’s comprehension of the story.
Overall, The Genizah Codex is a fun, pulpy read.
