The Guardians of the Covenant, by Tom Egeland

Tom Egeland

Author and journalist Tom Egeland was born in 1959 in Oslo, Norway. He grew up in the suburb Kalbakken in Groruddalen, north of Oslo's city center, where his parents ran two shops.

During high school, he lived for a year as an exchange student in the USA. Tom Egeland is married and has three children: Jorunn, Vegard and Astrid. The family lives in Oslo, Norway.

Egeland has worked as a journalist from 1979, and since 2006 he has been a full time writer.

Tom Egeland made his literary debut in 1988 with the horror novel Ragnarok - about a modern couple trapped in the Norse Viking age. In 1993 he published the horror novel Shadowland. His break-through was the novel Circle's End (2001), about the discovery of a gold shrine

Egeland's books have been translated into 18 languages.

(Review based on the Norwegian original, entitled Paktens voktere). In The Guardians of the Covenant, a Dan Brown-ish kind of a thriller, the Norwegian writer Tom Egeland again sends his albino archeologist hero Bjørn Beltø, a nerd that much prefers his research and the tranquility of his office, out into the world on a new quest. This time is an ages old Viking manuscript, found by an Icelandic colleague of Beltø that is the trigger. The document is Codex Snorri, from the old Viking chronicler and historian Snorri Sturlason.

The ancient Viking parchments contains runes and riddles that seem to point in the direction of an old document containing secrets of key importance to the understanding and interpretation of the Old Testament. These codes lead Beltø out on a quest for clues in mysterious places, from Egyptian tombs to antiquarian bookshops – to Rome, England, New York, Norway. As well, we travel in time, back and forth, and gradually linkages between occurrences and events are revealed to us.

The Guardians of the Covenant is a complex and very fast-paced conspiracy thriller. It draws on Old Norse myth, as well as on Ancient Egyptian superstition, Christian theology and ideas of Christian secret societies. All taking place in a world of codes, runes, hidden maps, archaic symbols, and opposing force of villains and with the CIA running interference as well.

Powerful forces are against him, but even so Beltø manages to unveil a religious cover-up with potentially fatal consequences. Beltø may be a nerd and quite geeky, but when the situation requires it, he is quite capable of making the right decisions. As well, he turns out to be capable of action when the need arises. An interesting hero, much loved in Scandinavia, I may add.

It is a big tale, probably also pretty wild and at times a tad lacking in plausibility, and - as well – a complex story. However, it is also a fun, fantastic, intriguing and memorable story. For fans of authors like Katherine Neville, Raymond Khoury and Dan Brown it’s a big treat and great entertainment. But if you prefer a quiet little whodunit, then this may not be the book for you.

Links to books by Tom Egeland at amazon US, amazon UK, and amazon CAN.