A child is cloned from the blood remnants on the Shroud of Turin. Is this child Christ returned, the Second Coming that humankind has been waiting for? Or is he someone -something- else?

IN HIS IMAGE was very well thought out and crafted by author James BeauSeigneur. This first volume of the CHRIST CLONE trilogy makes very exciting reading; you'll quickly finish this book, anticipating the next two volumes: BIRTH OF AN AGE and ACTS OF GOD. Unfortunately, these subsequent volumes lack the edge and intrigue of IN HIS IMAGE. They get bogged down in the minutiae of geopolitics, the UN and asteroids. BeauSeigneur and his editors should have used much red ink and shortened the three books down into a one volume epic that would have become a new standard in Christian apocalyptic fiction.

James BeauSeigneur may be an experienced politician and diplomat, and after reading from the reviews here, people seemed to think he's also a great storyteller. So when reading the book, I was surprised at his inability to write an interesting story. Here, he has come up with a pretty good idea, the cloning of Jesus, and turned it into a very boring book. It starts out okay with the Turin expedition and the cloning and later, Decker's kidnapping in Lebanon. After that it's just endless descriptions of political and diplomatic dealings of the United Nations, which gets boring after a few pages and lasts throughout the rest of the book. And the story is extremely choppy as a result of constant jumps in time. It's two decades earlier, ten years later, three months later, seven years later, three years later, twelve years later, etc. Every time it seems like something is about to happen, the chapter ends and the next chapter starts weeks or years later. As a result of this, you never get to know the characters so you never care for them.

After the first few chapters, I thought perhaps I would read the whole trilogy, but after finishing this first book I don't feel like wasting any more time or money on it.

Forget the other ten or more series book. These trilogy is the real deal. Superb story line, easy to read and understand. The mix of real facts and fiction are well done as well. I am curious to why these trilogy has not come to a theater near you...

This 'end of the world' books tend to cover so many characters and so many events that a reader can get lost. BeauSeigneur does a good job of always returning to his two main characters, Decker Hawthorne and Christopher Goodman. I like that he has researched and footnoted much of his information. When he gets to the speculation he has some interesting extensions of current and historical events which he can fit into a countdown to the end of days. I just wish there were more female characters -- hello, women are half the species folks!