Michelangelo's Notebook (A Finn Ryan Novel) Mass Market Paperback – June 7, 2005

I read about this book in one of the back pages of The Last Templar (one of those advertisment pages for new books). I was happy that there's more books in the Dan Brown/Ray Khoury genre as I like the intrigue of "lost treasure" books. Although the protagonist in this book sounds like a fun girl, the action was a bit too much. The author uses at least one flashback every 3-4 chapaters to set up future events. For some reason, it felt like a lot of flashbacks which frequently were difficult to put together.This isn't a bad book if you're interested in the genre that Dan Brown brought us (actually, Dan Brown is mentioned directly in the text of this .. found that interesting). It's a fast read but won't leave you thinking for days after you finish.

Michelangelo's Notebook is a historical novel; a novel that takes some very interesting historical facts and weaves them together with some historical myth, supposition, and guesses to make a convincing story. It is a good EZ read and will probably provoke a bit of thought about the truth or liklihood of the author's take on history. I enjoyed the book.

Formulaic but at least somewhat entertaining along the way. Ending never really pulls the pieces together and while two separate crime sprees are happening how they are triggered is never really explained. Really over sexed at times. Finn just randomly attracts men to say she is beautiful and then return to conversation. Seriously think they checked how often they mentioned boobs and if more than 50 pages added a random comment to fix that. Silly connection to the Vatican spies. Not exactly a fair portrayal of the Church either. True data points are added up to explosiveness for no reason other than to either make a statement or piggy back of the Da Vinci Code.

I read this book in two days. It's not often I find a book that I just can't put down, but this just wouldn't leave my hands. I found myself laughing at time, on the edge of my seat other times. Historical dramas are some of my favorite reads, and Christopher does a wonderful job in his story telling. Now I wait for his one, and I hope it comes out soon.

I like stories and mysteries that involve a bit of history . This one did it prettywell with the exception of the inevitable sexual encounter that many authors seem to think that they must add . The story was good without it.

Really enjoyed this book as well as most of the other novels by Paul Christopher. Sorry to see that he has not continued with this character Fin Ryan beyond the few novels. She is a great character!

This book moves quickly and is so much fun to read! Thoroughly enjoyable. And this is why I usually don't add reviews. They wanted 7 more words. Here you go. Book great, this review process sucks!

The book kept me interested throughout. Couldn’t stop reading. Read about Nazis stealing artwork in other places and this was wound all through the story! Pope Pius XII’s child was new to me though!

I wasn’t bowled over by the other reviews of this book but I thought I’d give it a chance. The plot isn’t half bad. There are moments where the pace is excellent and then moments where it seems to just drag. I like the main character although towards the latter half of the book it felt like a list of things just happening to her. My issues are:1. The formatting is appalling. Gaps and missing lines all over the place - sometimes in the middle of a sentence. Really jarring and takes you out of the story.2. Sentence length. I’m all for varying sentence length but some of them are just ridiculously long - the opening sentence being an example. This could have done with a really good edit.3. Back and forth dialogue without any clue as to whom is speaking. A real pet peeve of mine and makes conversation difficult to follow. The change of view points needed work as I wasn’t always entirely sure who I was following.4. The word ‘and’. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it used so many times in a book. One of the worst offences was it being used six times in one sentence. Really? Couldn’t have thrown in a comma? Full stop? Different conjunction? It got really irritating at points and is especially poor when subtle pokes are made towards Dan Brown who feels like a superior writer.Undecided if I’ll carry on with the series.

I recently purchased THE RED TEMPLAR by Paul Christopher for my wife as she loves the subject matter in question and I ended up reading it as I suddenly found myself without a book to read (very, very unusual as I normally have several on the go at the same time!) and, enjoying that and the author's style, I came to Amazon to backtrack on the author's back catalogue and, as you do, purchased several, including MICHELANGELO'S NOTEBOOK.Now whilst I liked the story telling of RED TEMPLAR, I soon found myself immersed in the intrigue that is Nazi War Loot and the murky world of stolen artwork, the subject matter of MICHELANGELO'S NOTEBOOK. However, whilst half the book I would class as "page-turning" simply because the story soon entangles you, the constant flipping between past and present and drawing in little sub-plots eventually had me slowing down as it became a little superfluous and, whilst generally enjoying the book, I found the almost dismissive ending to be a good 100 pages short of the mark - almost as if the writer decided, OK that's 350 pages in the bag - THE END - which is such a shame as with a little more development in the final chapters, this could have been (and should have been) one of my favourite books of 2013. However, I felt a little let-down!Ah well, I now have THE LUCIFER GOSPEL to crack on with which, hopefully will prove to be a little more worth the time and effort!

Loved this book, bought on a whim, but have bought the next three too,Great storyline,Excited about Finns future.

I'm always open to new authors, this one was just not for me, given its title was about Michelangelos notebook you don't really get a clue what it's about. The main characters are flakey and the plot has more holes than a sieve. The story seems rushed and it really doesn't flow that well. If it's a Scott mariani story you're going for it starts the same but then nose dives

This was a fast paced story with a number of likeable characters, I really liked the story which was tied to a number of historical facts. I would have liked some additional Michelangelo links to the story as he is such a strong and fascinating character. This is from someone who reads books and does not have the problem of writing stories.... Would recommend as good book to read.