Reading through the people’s journals, e-mails, programs, illustrations, and other miscellany that give plot points, the story involves a “ghost in the machine” named Niccolo Conti, the “Renaissance Explorer”.  The electronic spirit provides financial support to museum worker Sara Wolfe so she can find several Hindu goddess statues that once belonged  to him.

Expect spoilers

I enjoyed the book for its beautiful reproductions and sense of adventure with its Indiana Jones style globetrotting.  It made for good escapist reading.  Furthermore, the book pleasantly surprised me when the two main characters, Niccolo and Sara, did not turn into a couple as they searched for his prized sculptures.

However, I do not own this book anymore.  Mainly because of these reasons.  The subplot involving Sara’s friend Marco and his supposed cat features went nowhere.  Bantock dropped hints about this and from what I can remember, the author never expands on it.  After I finished the book, I thought, “Did you have a point to this?”  On Conti, I did not care much for him as a character.  When Sara takes him to task for hacking into her computer, he tries to excuse himself for having different morals because he came from a different era.   Neil Gaiman did this “Immortal with regrettable morals” theme better in The Sandman novel, The Wake.  I understand that Conti wants to complete his task to lift his curse as a ghost, but he should have had some courtesy for his partner.  To make things worse, even after she finds out, he still invades her privacy.  Not learning how to adapt to changing codes of conduct, Conti comes off less as an endearing scoundrel, and more as a sleazy, entitled jerk.  This problem does not stop there.

When we learn about Conti’s life as an explorer, I felt uncomfortable out about Yasoda, Conti’s wife, the woman he devotes his electronic life for.  Her father (I believe), a Christian monarch of India known as Prester John called her “a child” when Conti married her, and the implications of her age left me feeling gross.  Lastly, the book has a Da Vinci Code style subplot involving a religious sect trying to stop Sara and Conti from regaining all the sculpture, but Bantock wraps that up so quickly it leaves an anti-climactic aftertaste.   At the end of the story, Conti outs this secret society to the public except for Schneider, an antagonist who tracks down the works but Sara and Conti keeps anonymous after the trio reaches a truce.  I kind of want a sequel involving Schneider running away from this sect after they realize they did not gain anything from the hunt for the Hindi sculptures.  Sara labeled Schneider as slimy, but this woman works for Conti.  Furthermore, Conti and Wolfe make fun of his physical appearance so much, I start feeling sorry for him.

Now you understand why I do not own this book anymore.

ETA 5-4-2015: Fixed and rewrote a few things here, plus added a new link.

Also, rewrote the sentence in ETA to clarify the previous statement.