Katherine Neville was writing historical and/or religious conspiracy fiction before Dan Brown was even a twinkle in his publisher’s eye. Neville’s gigantic work of historical conspiracy fiction, The Eight has acheived cult status. The Magic Circle is one of her lesser known works.
   
    There was a time when I liked religious conspiracy novels. That was before all the hoopla over the DaVinci Crud. Nowadays I’ve become somewhat weary of the genre.
   
    But I read The Magic Circle anyway. Now where the Da Vinci Code is about a code, The Magic Circle IS a code. Layer upon muddled layer of indecipherable storyline, silly and dimensionless characterisations, and self-indulgent exposition.
   
    In this, Neville’s third novel, we meet Ariel Behn, a scientist in the field of nuclear waste management. When her cousin Sam dies, she inherits his entire estate, including a strange runic manuscript that draws her into a snare of intrigue involving her entire family - a very dysfunctional and secretive family without too many branches on the tree, if you know what I mean.
   
    The storyline moves back and forth in time, presenting us with an array of interesting historical characters, from Jesus Christ to Hitler, from Nero to Tesla. I got the feeling Ms Neville was trying to out-do her first novel, The Eight, in complexity and intellecual content. Well she did that, but the results are a befuddling mess, especially the incessant “revelations” about the family history. Auntie isn’t really your auntie, she’s your grandmother, and your uncle’s girlfriend is your boyfriends sister and your boyfriend is really your cousin and your father’s step-brother is really his full brother and Lu-u-uke, I am your FAH-THUH…. Yeah, its just that crazy. After a while I stopped trying to keep up with the family relationships. 
   
    The characters… well….
   
    Okay, so when is the last time you saw a really good-looking man? I mean perfection - tall, lean body, beautifully chiselled features, thick lustrous hair. Yeah the reason you haven’t seen any of those recently is because Katherine Neville grabbed them off the street and put them all in this book. Every man is a magnificent stud. Every woman is a stunning femme fatale. Even the really old people are hot looking. I’m serious, Ms Neville has really hot looking octagenerians running around.
   
    And everyone has green or blue eyes, except for the Native Americans, who have silvery grey eyes. Yeah, thats right, silvery grey. Hell, even Jesus has opalline eyes in this book. Give me a break - Jesus? I don’t know, maybe he takes after his dad or something.
   
    And Ms Neville was really stretching for character names too. Sam is the only character with a normal sounding name. Everyone else? Well there’s Ariel, Pandora, Hieronymous, Lafcadio, Bettina, Dacian, Wolfgang, Pastor, Clio, Jersey, Augustus and Olivier. No not Oliver, Olivier.
   
    Where are all the brown-eyed tubbies named Bob?
   
    The forays into history are the most interesting aspect of the book, despite the fact that everyone who has ever lived is hot. Jesus? Hot. Caliguala? Hot. Nero? Hot. Hitler? Well, okay, we know what he looks like so Ms Neville couldn’t very well go pretending he’s hot, so instead he just ends up a friend of Grandma’s (Auntie’s?) and he goes by the nickname of Lucky.
   
    Reading The Magic Circle is like watching a train-wreck. Its terrible, but you can’t look away. In spite of everything thats wrong with this book, I found myself enjoying it anyway, wondering what the name of the next unlikely character will be, which hot looking historical figure will we be introduced to next, and can this thing get any more complicated? (The answer to that last one is yes.)
   
    The end was a disappointment. After having waded through over 500 pages of perpelexing, but somehow engaging, nonsense, I felt I deserved a more glorious and climactic outcome. It was as if Ms Neville just ran out of steam and said, “Oh what the hell”. But the ending, if not satisfactory, was at least surprising - I’d expected something entirely different. Different would have been better.
   
    I realise the recent popularity of the Da Vinci Code has resulted in an upsurge of interest in books of this genre, so if Da Vinci has whetted your appetite for historical or religious conspiracy, I recommend you steer clear of this one. There’s much better out there - Umberto Eco, and Arturo Perez-Reverte spring to mind, and if you are interested in reading Katherine Neville, then begin - and end - with The Eight.