The Last Coin
You can purchase this book at amazon.com.
Tags: coins, comedy, fantasy, Judas
Started: 19th December 2007
Finished: 11th January 2008
Rating: 7.0
Review
This is sort of an odd book. We find out early on that the villain of the piece is trying to track down the 30 pieces of silver given to Judas to betray Jesus because the coins, when gathered together, give you immense power and immortality.
It takes the main character a long time to figure this out, mostly because he is an eccentric and a daydreamer who spends most of the book telling white lies to his wife, preparing to open their inn and cafe, and playing essentially pointless pranks on the villain, who is one of his house-guests. He doesn’t really realize how serious things are until 3/4ths of the way through the book, at which point things snowball very quickly.
I picked this book up because the author is a compatriot of Tim Powers, and this definitely shared thematic and stylistic similarities with some of his work, but the annoying main character and slow-to-develop plot worked against the final result.
