Persian Betrayal is Terry Brennan’s second book in the Empires of Armageddon series. We teach all our writers to start off with an exciting first sentence and paragraph and chapter. Brennan does this well but then the book bogs down in back story and history. That readers will start the series with this book is doubtful, so he could have done away with much of the redundancy from the first book. I almost quit reading several times because, quite frankly, I was bored. The characters from the first book didn’t seem as real or as engaging. Brian Mullaney, the main character, was a shadow of the character drawn in the first book. The action does pick up in the second half of the book but many people won’t reach that point.
The story commences just after the bombing of the Hurva Synagogue as Rabbi Yavod races back to the scene he just left to get the car. He hopes against hope the others will still be alive, but alas, all is destruction and death. He does rescue the box and the prophecy—without touching the container of course. As he leaves, he is seen by two of the bad guys who follow him in an attempt to secure the box. So starts the continuation of the saga. Mullaney and the Israelis arrive in the nick of time to save the box, but Yavod accidentally touches it in an attempt to save it from falling. The usual chases and gun fights ensue. We learn more about the evil behind the efforts to prevent the prophecy from being revealed to the world. I’ll read the third book only to find out what happens, but if Brennan adds the back story to that one too, he’ll have lost a reader. Almost four stars.
Terry Brennan won awards for The Jerusalem Prophecies series and has also led a Pulitzer Prize-winning team of journalists. He received the Balley Forge Award for editorial writing from the Freedoms Foundation.
Audra Jennings PR gave me a copy of Persian Betrayal, but I was in no way obligated to write a review. As an Amazon Associate, I may receive a small commission for any book purchased from this page.