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(More customer reviews)How many conspiracy theories can one story accommodate? It seems that answering that question was one of Alex Marcoux's major objectives in writing the book.
A Matter of Degrees brings back Marcoux's heroine Jessie Mercer, a novelist who has the gift of precognition. Jessie often finds that she writes a story and then it comes true, with her in a starring role. This time, Jessie's brother Steve, a news reporter, is working with a colleague on a story about the Freemasons and their connections to other secret societies supposedly cooperating for world domination when he suddenly dies. The police believe it is suicide, but Jessie isn't sure about that, especially when incidents from her brother's life begin to mimic what is in her most recent story. She decides to assume a disguise as a man and find out what happened to her brother by becoming a Thirty-third Degree Mason. As the story unfolds, Jessie finds herself dealing with the Freemasons, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers, the Roman Catholic Church, a story similar to the premise of The DaVinci Code, and flashbacks to a previous life in ancient Egypt. Even the Secret Service is portrayed as a surreptitious hit squad used to enforce the leader's wishes. She has to contend with all of this while she disappears from her own life for almost a year and keeps her lover songstress Taylor Andrews, who is on a world tour, from finding out what she is doing. The ending of the story culminates with a totally different conspiracy and puts Jessie in danger of losing her life.
A Matter of Degrees however stretches creditability well beyond the breaking point. The book has a slow start, perhaps because Marcoux lays a foundation based on the idea that all of the conspiracy theories in world history, including various assassinations, are not only true, but connected in a confusing pattern created by the people who really control the world. One conspiracy might seem logical; maybe two if the reader chooses to believe the current theory that says secret societies are linked in the New World Order. After a while though there are so many theories and suspicious circumstances that occur with no one being the wiser that it becomes impossible to accept the premise of the book. The end of the book is somewhat flat and predictable. A character that has been omniscient for thousands of years doesn't have the ability to see what is going to happen next. A Matter of Degrees is proof that more complex does not mean the story is better.
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This is a spellbinding new lesbian conspiracy novel in the mould of the "Da Vinci Code". Novelist Jessie Mercer has always had the gift of precognition. Shortly after she conjures up the idea for her newest book, she is drawn into a web of conspiracy, intrigue and murder. For Jessie's story, it turns out, began in ancient Egypt and has woven its thread through the tapestry of human history - only to come to an astonishing climax in modern America. In "A Matter Of Degress", Jessie meets Rachel Addison, field reporter for a respectable television news magazine. Rachel, involved in a controversial project that connects secret societies with well-known politicians, receives a warning in no uncertain terms to drop the project and forget the story. Then, her car's brakes are sabotaged and she is nearly killed. And, Jessie's brother Steve - another reporter on Rachel's show - is murdered, yet the police seem determined to rule his death a suicide. Rachel wants to back away from the deadly mystery, but for Jessie the desire to investigate is impossible to overcome.As Jessie struggles to solve the riddle and blow the conspiracy apart, the ancient secrets she discovers draw her further and further into a trap set centuries ago. The answers are there - it's up to her to uncover them. Fans of Alex Marcoux's previous novels "Facades" and "Back to Salem" will be enthralled by this spellbinding new novel, which heralds the return of her well-loved characters Jessie and Taylor, along with high-powered talent agent Sidney Marcum.
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