The Footprints of God
By Greg Iles ©2003

Dr. David Tennant works on the secret Trinity project. After a co-worker dies, Dr. Tennant is certain he was murdered. Together with the psychiatrist who has been trying to help him decipher the recurring nightmares he’s been having since a critical point in the project, Dr. Tennant is now running for his life as he tries to piece together the truth of Trinity and protect the human race from its consequences.

This was one of three books that I picked up after a preview for the movie Trapped reminded me how much I’d enjoyed the book that the movie is based on, 24 Hours. Despite the fact that the premise sounded fairly familiar, I decided to give this a chance. I’m a bit of a sucker for the techno-thrillers, after all.

The first blurb inside the book’s cover says that the book has “[a] great, grab-you-by-the-throat beginning” (Kirkus Reviews), and I’m happy to say that’s not only accurate, but that the once it’s grabbed you, the book doesn’t let go. The slowest parts of the novel come while the United States is under nuclear attack, so you can imagine how well the rest of the novel grips the reader.

The book has its flaws, of course. Early on, the point-of-view switches from first-person to third-person several times, which disrupts the flow slightly. The story as told from Dr. Tennant’s POV is more engaging than the third-person bits, though those bits are far from boring. While third-person is typically my prefered POV, I have no issues with a first-person POV; it’s just less distracting if the first-person is consistent.

The initial first-person POV was troublesome at first. Doctor Tennant is understandably worried about sharing the nature of Trinity with anyone outside the project, but by making him the POV character and not revealing the nature of the project to the reader seemed a bit contrived. Fortunately, we learn what he knows fairly quickly — within the first hundred pages, in fact. This may not be an issue for those who read the first hundred pages quickly. I was interrupted several times in the beginning of this book (by the time I was 150 pages in, I’d become engrossed enough to ignore distractions), which may have made this admittedly minor problem seem worse.

The book does touch a few topics that some readers may consider heretic. I’m never bothered when a fiction novel portrays God as something other than my understanding of the truth, since, after all, it’s a fiction novel. It didn’t bother me, but I do know that it will bother some people, so I felt I should mention it.

As a whole, The Footprints of God was great fun, and I wholly recommend it to anyone who enjoys techno-thriller stories. If those aren’t your prefered books, but you’re looking for something to read, you should give it a shot, anyway. There are far worse ways to spend $7.99.