This makes two consecutive book reviews that are seriously belated and that’s hardly their only connection. I wasn’t even aware of either the book or its author when I arrived at the 2022 Lincoln Highway Association conference but, John Jackson, co-author of that other book, was. More importantly, John was aware that Thompson was at the conference to get some insight into the days of named auto trails. He is working on a book based on the true story of a 1920s medical emergency that involved the Yellowstone Trail. John was also aware that I had recently traveled the Yellowstone Trail and he intended to get the two of us together at the conference. John wasn’t actually present when Thompson and I first met but, because of his earlier comments to both of us, no introduction was required when we found ourselves sitting at the same table for a presentation.

I know I’ve mentioned before that I do not read much fiction these days so it is unlikely I would have stumbled across Omar on my own. Thompson and I had several discussions about the Yellowstone Trail and early automobile travel in general, and that gave me the personal connection that made me want to start reading the book. The book itself made me not want to quit once I had started. It’s a page-turner of the first order.

By simplifying the plot to a ridiculous degree I can describe it as a race between terrorists and government agencies to reach a treasure. The treasure isn’t a simple stash of cash or gold bars but an exquisitely bound book that went down with the Titanic. Those elements alone bring bookbinding, deep sea exploration, and maritime law into the mix. Toss in an airport bombing, high-speed shoot-outs, kidnapping, and some professional rivalry and betrayal and there are enough plot threads to all but assure at least one is left dangling suspensefully every page or so.

And the bookbinding and sea exploring aspects are not dismissed with a few words of awe and wonder. They are covered with some serious discussion of craft, technology, and even a little chemistry.

I started this review with an admission of being late to the game but I’m not just a little late; I’m over twenty years late. The 1993 World Trade Center bombing is mentioned a few times in this book as an example of a major terrorist attack. It surely loomed large in Thompson’s mind as he constructed this novel in the latter half of the 1990s. On the day that Omar was published, August 1, 2001, people knew that terrorism on the scale Thompson describes was possible but not many thought it likely. Less than a month and a half later we knew better.

Omar Craig O. Thompson, StrataGem Press (August 1, 2001), 5.25 x 8.25 inches, 624 pages, ISBN 978-0967520711
Available through Amazon.