text: I wanted to like this book...  I enjoyed the first two in the series.  But this one left me a bit dry...  Babylon Rising: The Europa Conspiracy by Tim Lahaye and Bob Phillips.
  
  This continues the story of Michael Murphy, a college professor teaching biblical archaeology.  He is now heading off to Iraq to follow a tip on the location of "The Handwriting on the Wall" from the days of Daniel.  He's falling in love with a colleague who is in the same area, and he fears for her safety as things start to get dicey in his life.  Talon and the mysterious Seven are trying to eliminate him, and there are a few attempts on his life.  Mixed into this story is a terrorist attack on New York designed to throw America into an economic and national panic, as well as to prompt the UN to move their headquarters to the ancient city of Babylon.  Murphy, for someone who's pretty much a small fish in the large ocean, finds himself in the middle of all this...
  
  As I said, I really wanted to like this book.  The Murphy character is likeable, and I enjoyed the action.  But the plotline was spotty and over the top.  Murphy was using martial arts to take out everyone who attacked him (highly unlikely).  Everything the terrorists tried to do was thwarted just in the nick of time (over the top).  The story attempted to be both a Christian End Times novel and a terrorist suspense novel, and they didn't do either one especially well.  Murphy's growing infatuation with Isis was rather repetitive with the "she's so beautiful" and "could she be interested in me" interludes.  And finally, none of the plotlines wrapped up.  You got to the end and thought "so?"  Fine if you're ready to read the next installment, but not good if you started here or you have to wait some months for the next one...
  
  Part of me wants to be nice, give the book the benefit of the doubt, and rate it a "3".  But the authors are better than this, and I've come to expect more from someone who's been doing this for a long time...  If you're committed to the series, you'll want/have/need to read it, but just don't come in with your expectations very high..
  