The Rule of Knowledge (Scott Baker, Hachette)

This action debut started a little conventionally for me, but it quickly improved. Mild-mannered high school science teacher Shaun Strickland gets an invitation to Cambridge to present his theories of space-time at a conference. But before he even reaches the airport, he has crashed into a homeless man, been chased by armed attackers, discovered a bundle of 2000-year-old documents—one of them a diary written in modern English—and seen his wife shot. All that before the discovery of a mysterious conspiracy to send agents back in time to film an interview with Jesus. It’s all good stuff, but a thriller should be fast, and I found the opening section a bit word-heavy. Part Matthew Reilly, part Dan Brown, this is a book to be consumed in great 100-page gulps. It gets better and better the more you read. The ‘Rule of Knowledge’ states that if you know that something happened in the past, you can’t change it. The plot shifts back and forward, full of ingenious historical twists, and the ending is especially satisfying. I always enjoy these kinds of time-bending what-ifs, and if you can check your disbelief at the door, you will too.

Lachlan Jobbins is an editor, reviewer and ex-bookseller. He was one of the presenters of For the Love of Books on STUDIO (Foxtel)

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Category: Reviews