Oh, I wanted to like this book. I even really liked the main character, Maggie Castello, initially. But I found the pace uneven and all of the characters confusing. I was never sure of who was an Israeli or a Palestinian...or even what role the US Government was playing. This had great potential. I just had to struggle to get through it and then to finish it.

Save yourself some time and frustration- read other authors like James Rollins, Lee Child, or Harlan Cobin.

This book had amazing potential. There was a mix of romance, history, and adventure. However, it was also one of the dullest reads I've ever had the displeasure to open. It started off interestingly enough when you find a woman unhappy with her life and in need of a great adventure. However, it didn't stay that way. Here are the major points that irked me.

1. She had made mistakes and became blacklisted in the world of peacemaking. However the writer is very repetitive with this fact. After about 150 pages of the protagonist complaining about her mistake, you say, "Alright we get it." You almost don't even care what happened.

2. There isn't that much adventure. Sure there is the basic points of people chasing them and needing to find out the "secret" information they don't have yet, but overall, it was intensely boring. It was simply the protagonist complaining and talking peace negations. (Now although this was interesting to me; it wasn't something that should take up over half the book in what is supposed to be a thriller).

3. The ending was just plain ridiculous. You have all this build up excitement about what is on the tablet and when you find out your like "that's it?" You expect this great discovery. However, I blame the author on this point. He could've made this the greatest discovery of mankind, however, he chose to write it as just a dull enlightenment. There is one point in the end that set my opinion on the book in stone. I can't say because it will ruin the ending for anyone reading this review, but let's just say it has to with Second Life and "being chased" in cyber world.

4. The outcome of the discovery was too simplistic and unrealistic. Harry Potter seemed more real then the outcome of this book.

I don't recommend. However, the reason that I give this novel 2 stars instead of 1 is because the author did very well in creating an interesting flair for the politics.

" was called "The biggest challenger to Dan Brown's crown" and if my guess is right Bourne, aka. Jonathan Freedland, didn't choose his pseudonym at random (his books will be next to Brown's in most book stores). I complained about the uneven pace and incredible story (an incredible story is not bad in itself, but when an apparently regular mystery novel turns supernatural towards the end it demands too much suspension of disbelief (some authors can make the fantastic seem plausible but Bourne couldn't)).

Anyway, to get to "The Last Testament", the book seems _somewhat_ more believable than "The Righteous Men". Even so, it still doesn't seem plausible and thus never really got me hooked. It kept me reading but I never really cared very much about what happened. It may have been better as a movie than as a novel.