Customer Reviews

The Authenticator

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Just when you thought it couldn't be done, William M. Valtosintroduces a PI with a real difference. " 'I'd like to ask yousome questions about your death, if you don't mind,' " Theo Nikonos says, setting up his tape recorder by the bed of beautiful Laura Duquesne, drugged and confined in the basement of a private clinic. Laura died in surgery after the fiery car wreck which killed her husband. But 120 minutes later, she woke up in the hospital morgue.

Theo, a former insurance investigator, fighting failure in his personal and professional life, investigates near-death experiences. Laura's amazingly detailed story justifies the risks he has taken breaking into the clinic. No one has ever brought back such lucid particulars from the other side. Of course, such textbook confirmation also raises suspicions. And Laura claims her husband is still alive which is simply impossible. One thing is clear. Laura is terrified of something and it's not death.

Mild and tentative, Theo's determination is stoked by a savage beating. A tense and macabre rescue of Laura leads to love, mayhem and murder. But action and nail-biting suspense is as nothing compared to a revelation half way through the narrative that will leave the most jaded reader gasping in horror.

Theo's earnest narration underscores the eerie feel of this fast-paced and original novel, sure to send new readers on a hunt for his first, "Resurrection," which was made into an HBO movie, "Almost Dead."

I bought this book because I was just looking for a good fiction book that dealt with life after death or near death experiences. This was recommended to me by amazon. Right away I am captured by the amazing detail and clarity of a near death experience described by a young who was involved in a car accident and was pronounced dead at the hospital. An hour and a half later, in the morgue, she begins to show signs of life and comes back to tell an amazing tale.

She is interviewed by the hero of the story, Theo, who is doing research into near death experiences. She is being kept in this clinic against her will and begs Theo to help her escape. Theo is captivated by her beauty and finds himself unable to do anything but help. The young woman, Laura, explains to Theo that she was sent back (from the other side) to save her husband who was (supposedly) killed in the car wreck as well. Intriguing plot for sure!

Theo helps her escape and then the murder and mystery tale begins as they try to get away from those who held her captive while trying to find her husband.

The only reason I did not give this 5 stars is because the story gets a little slow until about page 200 or so when we find out why Laura was being held against her will in that clinic. Once it picks up again it I couldn't put the book down.

I will warn you that the main character, Theo, is a former psychology scholar. There are entire chapters dedicated to him examining how he or someone else is behaving or feeling and what the significance might be. For instance, he quite often seems to stop to examine his emotions and reactions when faced with imminent and immediate danger. This can be a bit much at times but hang in there. This kind of detail pays off in the end.

Enjoyed the book. Glad I read it.

Ever had a book grab you in the first few paragraphs and never let you go until the end? That's what The Authenticator did for me. I breezed through almost 400 pages in about a day and a half. As a novelist forever on the learning-curve of my craft, I've become so analytical while reading fiction that I rarely have that "pure escape" a good novel can provide, but Mr. Valtos delivered it with this excellent story. Kudos to the author and to Hampton Roads for a first-class tale of suspense!

I picked up this book at used store about a year ago then set it aside for months. I regret in some ways that I didn't read it upon purchase. Highly entertaining. A "novel" concept of an authenticator of life after death experiences. Mr. Valtos not only entertains you with this book's story but the central character is one you really get to know and enjoy- depsite his foibles and faults.
The novel is not high on adventure in the usual sense of the word but it does keep you rivited to the plot.
I am now reading La Magdalane and it is wonderful,.

A breathtaking journey into the afterlife and back again. For those of us who are curious about near death experiences, and those of us who have had them this is an amazing story.

Theos who is a rather down on his luck, well educated young man has found himself working for a professor whose life work is to prove the existence of an afterlife. Theos himself is somewhat doubtful about the whole business, but his loyalty to the professor as well as his need to earn a living keep him going.

When his investigation leads him to the bedside of a beautiful woman who had been reported to have a remarkable NDE, he finds himself drawn into her story, and to her. Giving into her pleas that her rescue her from her current situation has them both running for their lives.

He finds in himself a strength he never imagined that he possessed. From one seemingly impossible situation to another, he finds himself falling hard for this enigma of a woman. He seeks help from people from his own past, people he never thought to see again but, her life, Laura's life stood to be lost in a horrifying manner.

They fled, they hid, and they grew closer Using all of his past experiences to solve the mystery of how Laura had first come to lose her life. And how she returned to tell about what lies beyond. He used all of his investigative skills, until finally it becomes clear.

Finally, it has all come down to him. It is up to Theos to find a way to authenticate his beloved Professor DeBray's many years of work. He is the only one that can prove that beyond the research, beyond the investigation, and even beyond death lies a magnificent truth.

Sometimes I read a book and it feels "narrow." By "narrow" I mean that I feel like I am reading a story that is kept to tight confines by the author - the world in which the characters live is not expansive and not realistic. This book is one of those books.

It is also a bit unrealistic from time to time as the author drives the plot forward with bad decisions (like not getting help from the Police, or not asking why someone is being held hostage or not immediately killing the person who discovers the hostage, but instead putting them in a James Bond style situation that they have time to escape from) and unlikely scenarios.

That said, it was still enjoyable as light reading with an interesting story and a somewhat clever twist at the end. I'd have given it 3 stars, but I've read some really bad stuff lately, and anything that I put down and consider an enjoyable (even if flawed) read gets four stars from me.

This is a beautifully written first person story about a 20 plus academic / insurance investigator who meets with a "near dead" young lady, and attempts to explain the mysteries of her "Near Death Experiences". As we travel through Scranton,Pa. and the Pocono area into the Big Apple, we find many who want this duo dead or alive. A nice education into the psychology of dying, and the history of various religious ideas of same, you will definitely read this to the end. I was not surprised by the finale, but still found this to be a one of kind tale, perhaps a cross between King and Grisham, along with some NYC and small town police, hospital adminitration, insurance angles, investments, and a lot more. Go for it, and hope it's made into a major motion picture!

(Continued from the Shutter Island review)

...Contrast this to William M. Valtos' second novel, The Authenticator. Valtos falls to the left on the horizontal line, somewhat above on the vertical. He's done his research, but he doesn't show it very well. Each short chapter of this book feels more like a newspaper article, and each one has a summation of what's come before at the end. Valtos doesn't want to leave us anything to puzzle out on its own, and that is the book's main weakness.

Our premise here is that Theo Nikonos, a near-death experience investigator, and Laura Duquesne, a near-death experiencer, find themselves in very hot water. Nikonos knows of Duquesne's case, but as the story opens, he's having a very hard time getting in to see her. When he finally does, he gets in a quick interview before a couple of burly hospital guards throw him out with extreme prejudice. During the interview, she's appealed for help, saying they're keeping her in the hospital against her will. He can't resist a beautiful woman, and so the two of them are very quickly on the run, with Laura trying to find her supposedly dead husband and Theo in love with Laura.

While there is one major twist in this novel that comes out of the blue, the rest of it is just as predictable as is Shutter Island. The parallel is reinforced by the frame technique of having someone present this as memoirs (Dr. Charles Sheehan from the medical facility in Shutter Island, Nikonos in The Authenticator), with a letter to the reader as a preface. Examining the two letters will give the reader a number of clues as to why it is Lehane simply writes a better book than does Valtos; Lehane's language is more engaging. He's interested in hooking the reader and keeping him hooked. Valtos, on the other hand, knows a lot about a lot, and wants to make sure the reader knows it; there's no room for interpretation amidst the mini-lectures and spelling out of every salient point. The Authenticator does pick up in its last hundred pages, and is a readable book, but you'd be far better off with Shutter Island.

...(Continued in the Da Vinci Code review)

The Authenticator, by William M. Valtos, crosses genres from mystery to romance to fantasy in a tale that delves into the possibility of near death experience (NDE). The Authenticator, the eponymous protagonist, is Theophanes Nikonos, a psychologist with a Ph.D. who is down on his luck and working for short money as a researcher for a Professor interested in NDE's. Theo is investigating a claim of an NDE by a car crash victim, Laura Duquesne, who returned to life after having been declared legally dead for one hour and twenty minutes. What starts out as a routine interview by the skeptical Theo turns into a dangerous, life-threatening pursuit of the truth behind the mysterious circumstances of the death of Laura's husband, Harrison, whom she claims didn't perish in the car accident, knowledge she gained in her visit to the "other side" during her NDE.

Laura is convinced her husband is still alive, despite the existence of a corpse matching his medical description and an iron-clad coroner's confirmation, because when she "died" and experienced her NDE, she didn't see her husband amongst all her other dead relatives who greeted her. When Theo meets Laura, she is being held against her will in a rehabilitation clinic and she begs him to help her escape. Theo, convinced of the authenticity of her NDE and having begun to fall in love with her, rescues her from the clutches of her captors, and agrees to help her find her husband, whom she passionately loves and believes is still alive.

The mystery deepens when people connected to the case begin turning up dead (one is murdered in Theo's apartment), and when Laura's captors pursue her. On the run with Laura, Theo learns more about the circumstances of the accident and about her husband's character, and becomes suspicious that he may be alive after all. He also wonders about the possible role Laura's NDE played in her captivity. With their own lives now in danger, Theo and Laura retrace the events of the fateful day of the car crash to try to unravel the mystery before they are both killed or Theo is arrested for murder.

The Authenticator is an enjoyable and intriguing story, well-plotted and gripping. The book includes plenty of interesting information about NDE's as well as other psychological conditions, but towards the end its tone is excessively didactic. Another weakness, one that does not really harm the overall story but that is disappointing and annoying, is that Laura is portrayed as thoroughly gullible and naive, an empty vessel waiting for some man to fill her up. I prefer stronger female characters. The final chapters are a little heavy-handed and repetitive of information previously mentioned at the beginning of the book in the description of one of the characters' NDE. Finally, the plot suffers somewhat from predictability, but still provides pleasure as the reader awaits the inevitable twists and turns. Overall, the book was a substantive, satisfying read, and I would recommend it.

I met William and his wife Rose at a conversational German class. He told us he was an author so I thought I'd try his book. Actually I wasn't expecting much after all he wasn't anyone famous, just a regular guy I knew. I was surprised. The book is remarkably well done. Faced paced and never boring, with some suprising twists. I'm used to reading Stephen King and Nelson DeMille, and Mr. Valtos' writing skills in The Authenticator compares very favorably with those two excellent writers.

Hello William, I hope you have a good trip to Europe. Wie Geyts Rose!

Mike Lilly