THE COVENANT OF THE FLAME

By David Morrell

Warner Books (1991)

Reviewed by Bob Thompson 7/1/91

David Morrell is one of my favorite authors. I was a little disappointed with his last one,THE FIFTH PROFESSION, but he is back in top form with this new one.

Morrell departs from his usual this time by using a woman as his central character, and she isn't even a professional assassin or anything. Tess Drake is a reporter/journalist/writer for "Earth Mother Magazine" an environmentalist publication based in New York, NY. She is a modern, competent woman of the 90s. The daughter of wealthy and powerful parents, she rejected her plush surroundings and struck out on her own.

(If this scenario sounds vaguely familiar to you, check out my 5-26-91 review of Lustbader's ANGEL EYES. Sometimes I wonder if Lustbader and Morrell are really the same person; their writing styles, settings, characters and everything are so similar.)

Anyway, Tess meets a nice guy in the elevator, has lunch with him and makes a date for later. Her nice guy who also happens to work for a company in the same building that houses "Earth Mother Magazine" stands her up! After a couple of days Tess decides to go to his office to give him "a piece of her mind" but is told by the receptionist that he hasn't been seen since the day that Tess met him, and that the address in his employment record turned out to be a mail drop.

Now Tess is worried, intrigued and has all of her reporters need for answers aflame. She enlists Lieutenant Craig of the NYPD Missing Persons Bureau to help, and together they eventually piece together a trail thal leads them to the morgue where Tess manages to identify a badly burned corpse as her missing friend. Later they discover where he lived; Tess & Craig are both shocked and puzzled when they visit his apartment.

At the same time as all of this is happening, people responsible for serious ecological problems are being assassinated all over the world, Tess & Craig are soon caught up in a complex situation that began two millennia ago.

This is a very interesting book, with something for everyone, except those who can't stand violence, or who are Roman Catholics that are convinced that the Church is a wholly benevolent institution. The darker side of the Church is a recurring topic in many of Morrell's stories, and I am afraid that there is more than a bit of truth in some of his conjectures. This book contains elements of religious controversy, myth, history, politics, art & antiquities, friendship, environmentalism, conspiracy, revenge, loyalty and fanaticism. It is very violent, but beneath it all, it is a love story about two more or less "ordinary" people thrown into an extraordinary situation and trying to survive.

There are several important messages in this book, and although it goes to extremes, we can all learn something from it. I'm afraid there is more than a kernal of truth in several aspects of the book, much more than we would like to believe. Many of the "supporting characters" are identifiable individually or as composites of current political leaders. READ IT, Think about it.
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