Firstly, despite being named The Crimson Code, there is no crimson code in the entire novel, there's a crimson codex however I guess the publisher felt codex lacked pizzazz so they went for code like Da Vinci Code.

Why do I mention that? As this entire book seems like a poorly written low budget Da Vinci Code rip off, so I was not exactly surprised to find that Mira Books is in fact an imprint of Harlequin Books aka the cheesy romance publisher. Nor was I surprised to note Rachel Lee's main forte is romance novels.

There's a few problems with this story, the main one of which is that really it's just not that interesting - there's a big terrorist attack then a super secret UN team do a really budget break in to steal information at a bank which has less security than a shopping centre, but magically they have high level encryption which takes the super secret UN team wizards weeks to crack which leds to a rather bland troop through Europe for the backers of the terrorists. The ending is pretty much just forward selling to get you to buy the next one in the series.

If it were the only book in a newsagent before you had a long flight, it would fill in your time but beyond that it's not worth your time. ( )

Dec. 25: A bomb rips through a packed Cathedral in Jakarta. As the hours pass, terrorist explosions continue around the globe, triggering worldwide panic and creating a nightmare beyond words....

Inside the cover agency known only as Office 119, agents Renate Bachle and Lawton Caine are called upon to identify the groups responsible for the bloodshed. But the so-called "Black Christmas" attacks are nothing more than a smoke screen for a far more sinister conspiracy. At its heart are ruthless secret societies with blood ties that date back thousands of years, whose goals are nothing less than global domination.

Renate and Lawton are only beginning to fathom how far the darkness extends. With the U.S. president set to deploy nuclear weapons against the wrong targets and religious violence erupting across Europe, they must untangle the interwoven plots before time runs out and Armageddon becomes a terrifying reality.