The Crystalline Rain

Rating:
Summary: Interesting!
Review: I found writer E.H. Mondich's, "The Crystaline Rain" unique and interesting. His characters are well-developed and easy to relate to. The dialogue smooth and interesting. And, the plot a real page turner. A very appealing combination.

John Savoy
Savoy International
Motion Pictures Inc.

Rating:
Summary: Midwest Book Review - part excitement, part mystery
Review: Well-crafted prose, technological and biological breakthroughs, and military skullduggery all play a part in this first book by E.H. Mondich. I can't even imagine the weeks of research that made this premise work so well.

David Jenkins is an Air Force Captain, Professor of Physics, and a brilliant scientist. His gift to the world is holographic memory. He's chosen by the U.S. government and the Pope to reveal long held secrets of the Shroud of Turin, the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. David is agnostic, a non-believer, but as pure as any man can be where his work is concerned. When the lab catches fire during testing, and a Papal representative dies, David makes the perfect scapegoat. He creates a new life for himself outside the military, as a professor of physics at Rice University. Always simmering beneath the surface is his anger at a betraying God, a God he flat refuses to believe in.

Mondich builds an intriguing tale of greedy politicians and military officers who are not above using anyone - including Jesus Christ - if that will suit their ends. Simpson Biotech International has supposedly cloned Christ from the Shroud. The CEO of S.B.I. is David Jenkin's ex Commanding Officer. Simpson's clone of Christ is dying, and nothing can save him except Jenkin's perfected holographic technology. Simpson has surrounded himself with a mix of civilian and military bad guys. Will Professor David Jenkins be a match for them?

The climax of this story is explosive, part excitement and part mystery. Does David Jenkins survive it? Is Simpson's clone truly Christ come back to earth in human form? And what is the amazing phenomenon called The Crystalline Rain? I suggest you read the book to find out.

Rating:
Summary: Learning from The Crystalline Rain
Review: Whenever I read a book, even a novel, I expect to learn something from it. In Ed Mondich's first novel, I learned a lot. Mondich's super-original story line includes fascinating insight into the Air Force Academy, holograms, genetics, hurricanes, medieval Europe, the Shroud of Turin, and homicide investigations. He covers a lot of ground quickly. The reader is taken on a breakneck tour through history and the ragged edge of the most modern technology to experience one of the most original story lines in recent memory.

David Jenkins is the hero who is the unwitting participant in a quest that searches for faith as well as scientific inquiry. The novel's concept, despite its original story line, is remarkably simple. What would a 3-D holographic image of the negative imprint left on the Shroud of Turin look like? Moreover, could genetic material left on the same shroud be cloned? An initial thought concerning those questions might conjure up the notion of blasphemy. Mondich, in what could be the novel's most significant challenge, handles the story line in a very respectful way that aids the hero's quest.

Ultimately, the reader happily joins Jenkins on his quest. Mondich patiently and succinctly explains the history and technological possibilities of modern science as the quest progresses. The 208 pages of the novel practically fly from beginning to end with the reader receiving what could only be described as a blessing of faith and personal knowledge.