Magic swirls in Robert Masello’s ‘Medusa Amulet’

David Franco is a man on a mission.

In Robert Masello's riveting "The Medusa Amulet," the intelligent young scholar has cut a Faustian-like deal with a mysterious woman. If he succeeds in finding an ancient amulet from somewhere in Europe and returning it to her, he will be promoted to a prestigious job at Chicago's world-renowned Newberry Library. Plus he'll get a million dollars. Plus his sick sister will be miraculously cured of cancer.

If he fails, well ... failure probably means death. At least for his sister. And maybe some others, including him and the woman he loves.

"Get it for me, and I can promise that your (sister) Sarah will live to a ripe old age ... just like me," she tells him during a meeting.

It's crazy and spooky, but Franco is desperate and jumps into something that is way bigger than him.

Masello's novel is like that too — crazy, spooky and at times, over the top. The California author, who has TV writing credits, likes to suspend disbelief in "The Medusa Amulet." He pours romance, science, conspiracies and historical events (and who knows what else) into a suspense story that tastes like an episode of the early 1990s TV show "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles."

It's thrilling, sexy and enjoyable, but it has a lot of ingredients packed into it. At times, it makes your head spin.

Indiana Jones, er, David Franco, zips off to Italy to hunt for the amulet, dubbed La Medusa, since it's decorated with an image of the Greek monster Medusa. If it exists, as the mysterious woman claims, it can do some miraculous stuff that borders on being biblical (think Ark of the Covenant).

Franco meets a beautiful young Florentine named Olivia. She is also passionate about finding the object. They invariably fall in love and get caught in a violent cloak-and-dagger game.

During the hunt, Masello takes the reader on lengthy flashbacks to explain the amulet's occult origins and how it's influenced history, from the Middle Ages to the French Revolution.

These flashbacks, while interesting to witness, don't help the main plot and prove to be distracting. They're overloaded with details and events. Masello probably should've written a separate, prequel story about La Medusa.

Nevertheless, "The Medusa Amulet" has got some magic to it.