SECRETS FROM THE ROCKS

Often regarded as the inspiration behind Indiana Jones, renowned dinosaur hunter Andrews marks an apt change of pace for Marrin, best known for rousing accounts of wars and generals. Working for New York’s American Museum of Natural History, Andrews first made his name collecting whales just before the WWI, then went on to organize an epochal series of expeditions into Mongolia, searching for—and finding in profusion—the remains of prehistoric creatures. Indulging in his fondness for lurid, attention-grabbing anecdotes, the author tucks a beheading, some gunplay, and a meal featuring boiled sheep’s eyes into his account of Andrew’s adventures, discoveries, family life, and opinions on various topics from hunting to women. Contemporary photos capture the rugged conditions under which Andrews and his companions labored, as well as some of their revolutionary findings; back matter includes a perfunctory list of books and Web sites. Andrew’s life does make a grand tale, though as it’s just been told with similar flourish for the same audience in Bausum’s and Andrews’s more heavily illustrated Dragon Bones and Dinosaur Eggs: A Photobiography of Explorer Roy Chapman Andrews (2000), this rendition is more an alternative than a must-buy. (Biography. 10-13)