Books like Shadow of the Galilean

I'm not sure what to say about this book. I read it for a class and found it interesting but also rather uninspiring. On the plus side, I appreciated Theissen's efforts to render historical information in the form of a novel. It was certainly a nice alternative to the usual class reading. On the negative side, Theissen is not a great fiction writer; rather than feeling immersed in the time period, I was often all-too-aware of the author's efforts and intentions. The historical information frequently felt unnatural to the context, with characters giving facts to each other that seemed taken out of a classroom lecture. Theissen's letters between chapters, written to a fictional Dr. Kratzinger, provided a useful way to discuss the methodology of the author without interrupting the story, but they too felt a bit contrived. My reaction to most of the letters was, "Wow, Dr. Kratzinger is a critical jerk. Does he really have something negative to say about every chapter?" Finally, I would say that the biases involved in writing about the "historical Jesus" put me off a bit. Thiessen includes huge amounts of Jesus' sayings, quoted word for word from the gospels, but then down-plays, ignores, or explains away the miracle accounts. Apparently he thinks the gospels are highly accurate regarding Jesus' speech and "non-miraculous" action, but unreliable about the miracles. I'm not sure it makes sense to take one without the other, but then again I have a lot to learn about this "historical Jesus" research stuff.