The Rozabal Line is a tale of secrets and conspiracies, adventure and romance, power and glory stretching back to the ancient world and forward to the near future. It encompasses many tantalizing elements, any one of which would make for a fascinating novel: revisionist religious history, mysterious organizations which exert their influence over many centuries, modern technological marvels,and modern political/social issues like terrorism. To be his first novel, Shawn Haigins has done a commendable job of tying the many disparate parts together in a cohesive whole. It speaks well for his future as a novelist.
The Rozabal Line refers to a mysterious tomb in India and a bloodline which may, or may not, descend from Jesus Christ. Despite this seeming similarity to a well known novel by Dan Brown, The Rozabal Line manages to outdo its rival by chronicling several different story lines which run parallel through the book, some taking place in the near future (2012) while others date to the first years of the great religions of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. There is much to ponder here, as Haigins does a superb job of chronicling many intriguing similarities between the foundation stories of Christianity and other, now extinct, faiths. He provides copious notes directing the interested reader to many books and websites which provide more details for these ideas. (The story can be enjoyed even if the reader does not accept some or all of these claims, by the way.) By the final chapters, Haigins ties the many loose ends up neatly with a satisfying conclusion.