An enjoyable, if ultimately shallow, adventure beneath the sands.
A team of experts attempts to explore a newly discovered pyramid in the Sahara in this debut archaeological thriller.
When a freak storm appears suddenly in Niger, a group of British and American archaeologists examining a newly discovered Saharan tomb is forced to take shelter in the underground complex. After surviving a harrowing night there, the band emerges to discover the storm has blown away the massive sand dunes that surrounded the site—and revealed what had been long buried underneath: “The land dipped away from them into a wide valley. Most of the valley was taken up by a prehistoric city. In the middle of the city, a large pyramid with smooth silver sides stood gleaming in the sun.” As the archaeologists rush to decipher the secrets of the pyramid—a structure that seems to exhibit technological prowess that makes little sense according to their understanding of human history—news of their find reaches a small island in the English Channel. There, a rogue billionaire has assembled an elite, private military force. Led by the no-nonsense James Cavill, the warriors are sent by their employer to launch an investigation of their own. It seems that satellites have picked up a massive energy source emanating from the silver pyramid. Considering that the pyramid has been buried for thousands of years, there is reason to suggest that the source might be sustainable. The only issue—for Cavill and the archaeologists wandering through the newly materialized city—is who else might be searching for the ancient secrets of the Sahara. Arkwright writes in a lean, taut prose that pushes the plot forward at a rapid pace. The premise is compelling, and the reader becomes quickly engrossed in the mysteries contained within the pyramid. While the dialogue is often overly expositional, and the book is ultimately more interested in gunfights than in prehistoric civilizations, fans of the genre should be entertained by this action story set in one of the world’s remotest regions. The author shows no interest in excavating any deep truths, but he proceeds to tell a suitably swashbuckling tale.
An enjoyable, if ultimately shallow, adventure beneath the sands.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9568880-5-1
Page Count: 282
Publisher: North Shield Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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