Gabino Iglesias Reviews The Malachi Covenant by Dee Kelly, Jr.
The Malachi Covenant, Dee Kelly Jr. (Forefront Books 978-1-63763-255-0, $26.00, 432pp, hc) April 2024. Cover by Mary Susan Oleson.
The international success of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code spurred a slew of novels that wanted to work in that same arena, blending elements of thrillers and historical fiction with elements from various religious faiths. Unfortunately, while some were outstanding, many seemed to lack research and didn’t bring anything new to the table, which is what often happens when authors try to quickly cash in on whatever they perceive is a hot trend in publishing. Luckily, that big wave died off, and some of the novels that followed years later were meticulously researched. Dee Kelly Jr.’s The Malachi Covenant is one of those novels.
Maggie Shepherd is a Biblical archeologist working on a very important project: the extraction and study of a small bone fragment attributed to St. Nicholas, one of one of the most important relics of the Christian world. The bone and the liquid substance in the tomb – which is known as manna – are said to have healing powers, and they can miraculously cure even the most aggressive diseases in those who come into contact with them. The purpose of the extraction Maggie is working on is bigger than just the science and knowledge that will come from studying the bone. On Christmas Eve, the Pope will visit Moscow and give the relic as a gift to the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church. If all goes well, the encounter and the gift of St. Nicholas’s relic will reunite the East and West after 1,000 years of separation. Unfortunately, many powerful people know of the relic’s powers and wish to control it. Among them is Nikolai Todorov, a Russian mobster who’s terminally ill and will do anything to get the kind of miraculous healing the relic promises. To steal the relic, he hires Malachi Popov, a retired mobster who’s a devout man who now spends his days caring for his sick, elderly mother. Popov doesn’t want to help Todorov steal St. Nicholas’s relic, but he needs the money to keep taking care of his mother and knows going against Todorov’s wishes could spell disaster for him.
Popov, with some help, manages to steal the relic, and Todorov briefly gets the miracle he wanted, but then someone else steals the relic from him. In the ensuing mayhem, Maggie and Popov must join forces to recover the stolen relic before the rest of the world learns it’s missing and the efforts to once again reunite the Church are foiled. What follows is a worldwide adventure full of intrigue, history, and murder.
The Malachi Covenant is an engaging novel, Maggie is a likeable character and, surprisingly, so is Popov. The pacing is solid, and Kelly keeps things moving by skipping unnecessary details – what characters are wearing, descriptions of places, etc. – and focusing all his energy on juggling his characters and offering readers different perspectives via chapters told from the point of view of different characters. Besides Maggie and Popov, the novel has chapters that focus on Todorov and, perhaps the shortest and most interesting ones, St. Nicholas. These last scenes show how much research Kelly did for this novel, and they add an extra layer to the narrative.
The thriller and crime elements work well here, and the miracles and strange deaths of several characters balance things out with a touch of speculative fiction that blends in perfectly. As with other novels that do so much, there are characters that are disposed of very conveniently and certain scenes that push the narrative forward but fall a little short in terms of character development, but Kelly always manages to keep things interesting.
Readers who enjoy their thrillers with a religious angle will love this one. The Malachi Covenant is a race against the clock that also spends time bringing history to life and exploring the life of the man who would eventually become Santa Claus. Kelly’s knack for historical fiction is evident here, and the fact that he isn’t afraid to mix that with speculative fiction makes him an author to watch.
Gabino Iglesias is a writer, journalist, professor, and book reviewer living in Austin TX. He is the author of Zero Saints and Coyote Songs and the editor of Both Sides. His work has been nominated to the Bram Stoker and Locus Awards and won the Wonderland Book Award for Best Novel in 2019. His short stories have appeared in a plethora of anthologies and his non-fiction has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and CrimeReads. His work has been published in five languages, optioned for film, and praised by authors as diverse as Roxane Gay, David Joy, Jerry Stahl, and Meg Gardiner. His reviews appear regularly in places like NPR, Publishers Weekly, the San Francisco Chronicle, Criminal Element, Mystery Tribune, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and other print and online venues. He’s been a juror for the Shirley Jackson Awards twice and has judged the PANK Big Book Contest, the Splatterpunk Awards, and the Newfound Prose Prize. He teaches creative writing at Southern New Hampshire University’s online MFA program. You can find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.
This review and more like it in the July 2024 issue of Locus.
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