“Theology, Mystery, and Romance”: A Review of Penelope Holt’s The Angel Scroll

 

(Roundfire Books, 2024). ISBN: 978 1 80341 569 7

Penelope Holt’s new novel, The Angel Scroll, proves that the history meets mystery (or theological-thriller) genre popularized by the likes of Dan Brown, Barbara Wood, Paul Christopher, and Katherine Neville can have at its core a genuine humanness and examination of personal loss without sacrificing the searing pace, relentless intrigue, and globetrotting action its readers love and expect.

The Angel Scroll is replete with the requisite cast of professors, artists, clergy, doctors, researchers, and rare manuscript and documents dealers and collectors that readers of the theological-thriller genre have come to expect and love. The main villain is suitably dark as well, with proclivities that should bring a considerable chill to your spine.

This well-funded, well-connected cast of characters moves between Manhattan, Jerusalem, London, Rome, Milan, Northern France, and other intriguing, exotic locales in search of three paintings and the scroll that gives the novel its name (the latter of which is based on a real artifact, the authenticity of which is in dispute). It is through these religious items that the Prophecy and Destiny of the subtitle come into play—everyone from the Vatican to private collectors want these theological tools for themselves.

The Love of the subtitle enhances the core of the story, which makes the novel unusual and refreshing in the theological-thriller genre, where any romantic interludes tend to be shallow and fleeting. The narrative revolves around Claire, a recent widow and struggling abstract artist who creates one of the three paintings that set the plot in motion. Claire’s sense of loss and an unexpected physical condition are complicators and drivers in her quest for answers, especially when she meets a widower named Richard whose spouse died under much different circumstances than Claire’s.

The success of the novels in this genre depends upon several components: the richness of the archetypal characters, the pacing of action and dialogue, detailed descriptions of the locales (both geographical and architectural), and the interweaving of history with the mysterious/paranormal/theological aspects of the tale of adventure the author is telling. I give Holt high marks for handling all of them well. The Angel Scroll is a rapid read, with an uncomplicated yet engrossing plot. I mean this last bit as a complement—in the storytelling of the past decade, there seems to be a desire and competition among writers to construct overly complex and even convoluted plots as a point of pride.

In the process of creating a novel that accomplishes all of the aforementioned, essential things it needs to, Holt delivers a ticking-clock thriller that pulls from Eastern spirituality, architecture, biblical scholarship and prophecy, Jewish mysticism, and the Druids and Celts, placing it squarely among the works of the luminaries of the history-meets-mystery genre.

What makes the novel so refreshing is that it never strays from the heart-wrenching, very human experience of love and loss that brings its central characters to life.