The title of the book changed in 2007. The Turin Shroud: How Da Vinci Fooled History. Who said a review had to be timely. Read this one. It begins:
If one would like to know about facts and reasoning on the subject, this is not quite the book one should begin with.
One generally picks up a book of this sort for information about what is going on, what is known, and so forth. Opinions and biases of writers are bound to come in, but good writers and thinkers manage to sift through what is known and go with some reasonable logic to their conclusions and manage to present them in their work with some credibility. That last part is somewhat missing or at least garbled in this work.
Less than halfway through one manages to see the pattern that continues consistently – the duo has arrived at some conclusions and are presenting them as fait accompli from almost page one, without going through the process of reason or logic for benefit of the reader. It begins to look like a session of bashing up some other writers and thinkers and more, on the whole, and it is not clear why since the thinking process of this duo is obscure.
Often they object to the thinking or logic or conclusions of others with huge gaps in their own logic for doing so, and it is repeatedly this sort of confusing material that brings one to suspect that the whole idea is to bash up the reader with a great deal of emotionally charged diatribe without much logic until one gives up and agrees with the writers – a typical tool of gossip sessions of afternoon coffee sessions.
Reviews – Books I Read – DRJG: Turin Shroud: by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince.