Tundraco's Daily Living Guide to Book Reviews

The Sculptor By Gregory Funaro Pinnacle (2010) ISBN 10: 0786022124 ISBN 13: 978-0786022120

Reviewed by Israel Drazin - April 1, 2010

Gregory Funaro's The Sculptor is an engrossing thriller with unusual events and suspenseful twists. Although this is Funaro's first novel, it reads like a book produced by a long-time experienced writer. Funaro pays careful attention to details, he gives his readers artful descriptions, he portrays his characters so that we like his heroes and are interested in his villain. He advances his tale in a reasonable manner showing how the FBI discovers the criminal. He keeps the Sculptor's secret, the reason for his bizarre behavior, until the appropriate time to reveal it, but he drops hints in a tantalizing way. He introduces us to the history and personality and sexual inclinations of the famous Michelangelo and explains why his statues are out of proportion. And, with all of this, he constructed a perfectly engaging thriller.

Readers, drawn into the adventure, will find themselves asking themselves questions. Why did the Sculptor commit his unusual crimes and why did he perform them the way he did? Why was he fascinated with the college professor, Dr. Hildebrant? Why was he so strangely kind to his father? Why did his mother mistreat him? Why did the Sculptor use a prostitute when he sculpted Mary the mother of Jesus? Why did he use body parts of two other people for Mary, making a figure with three parts? What mistake did the Sculptor, a genius, make?

I look forward to Funaro's future books. He will undoubtedly become a best-selling author.

Dr. Israel Drazin is the author of fifteen books, including a series of five volumes on the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible, which he co-authors with Rabbi Dr. Stanley M. Wagner, and a series of four books on the twelfth century philosopher Moses Maimonides, the latest being Maimonides: Reason Above All, published by Gefen Publishing House, www.gefenpublishing.com. The Orthodox Union (OU) publishes daily samples of the Targum books on www.ouradio.org

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