The concept behind this novel was interesting but the execution was clumsy in my opinion. The beginning chapters were choppy with the action going from Ray in Athens, Greece to characters in 16th century Japan and then back to Ray as he manages to get back to San Francisco, where he is taken from the plane in an apparently catatonic state. I almost abandoned the book a couple of times in the first third because everything seemed so unrelated to everything else but eventually the storyline began to make sense. However, this book also needed an editor and better formatting and the ending became obvious too soon. At least I "purchased" this while it was a free copy rather than the $2.99 it is currently listed at.