Review of "With the MD...At the Altar?"

Title: With The M.D...At The Altar? (Curse of Raven's Cliff)
Author: Jessica Andersen

This is the first book in the series called Curse of Raven's Cliff, and I must say, "With the MD...At the Altar?" has got to the the stupidest title ever. Looking at the title and the cover gives you the impression of a hokey category romance where the girl is obviously putting out so she can snag herself a rich doctor husband. Nothing can be further from the real story. This book is actually a medical crime mystery set in a gothic seaside town complete with mysterious lighthouses, haunted monasteries, and curses.

The heroine is the town doctor trying to battle an outbreak among the townspeople, some of whom turn very violent and murderous. Enter the hero, also a doctor, but who works for the CDC. He has arrived to help the heroine figure out what's causing the epidemic and find a cure. He and the heroine also have a history - they used to be an item when they worked together in rescue medicine in various developing countries in the past.

The mystery was interesting, the writing was solid, but the characters were so bland that if you notice, I don't even remember their names and have to refer to them as "hero" and "heroine" for this review. The hero is supposed to be this hotshot hot stuff, but he had no personality whatsoever. I also found both the hero and heroine's motivations to be contrived and forced, and when I finally found out what the reasons were that had kept them apart all these years, I was like, "so what? That's been the problem this whole time? Eh." Also, when they finally got together for teh secks, I was was so bored that I actually skipped ahead. No chemistry to speak of between these two.

And, because this is part of a series, the mystery wasn't resolved, which pissed me off. Hello, who was the killer?! I devote time to read through this book and get no payoff? Blah!

Grade: B-

Review of "The Lost Tomb"

Title: The Lost Tomb
Author: David Gibbins

So, in the space of one week in this crazy book (a sort of DaVinci Code meets Raiders of the Lost Ark), the hero, Jack, and his merry band of protagonists went here and found these:

1. St. Paul's shipwreck off the coast of Naples, along with priceless wine amphoras and ingots that were, of course, historical breakthroughs.
2. Emperor Claudius' intact and complete library at Herculaneum, miraculously preserved from under the pyroclastic flow of Vesuvius' eruption in AD 79.
3. The actual skeleton of an actual Vestal Virgin sitting on a throne underneath Palatine Hill in Rome, in what is strongly hinted at to be the Lupercale, aka the cave where Remus and Romulus were nursed by a she-wolf.
4. Boudica's tomb in London (Boudica the British warrior-queen), with intact skeleton and intact artifacts from the Iron Age surrounding her, along with the actual cylinder containing the long-lost Gospel of Jesus Christ himself.
5. The actual location of Jesus' tomb underneath the Holy Sepulchre church in Israel.

Forgive me if I seem to be rolling my eyes literally and figuratively as I list these items - each discovery becoming more and more fantastic as the story develops - but come on. Look, I realize this is a fictional novel that's supposed to be fun and fantastical, but there comes a point where it becomes so fantastical as to be ridiculous and unbelievable and makes my head explode. What a real archaeologist wouldn't give to discover and experience even a fraction of what Jack and Company discovered and experienced in one week - which is exactly my point. They discovered all five of those things listed up there, in one week?

I also feel like we flitted and hopped from one fantastic location to the next, from one great discovery to the next, without taking the time to savor the discovery. I would've loved to spend a few more chapters exploring Claudius' library at Herculaneum and see the characters do some actual archaeology instead of stealing artifacts in pursuit of a treasure. No digging, no sifting, no wall profiling, no cataloging, no attempts at preserving the provenance of the artifacts - things essential to good scholarship and good archaeology. I understand these things probably would make for a boring novel, but at least make an attempt at reality. It seems to me like Jack took shortcuts everywhere he went in his single-minded pursuit of the solution to the mystery by diving through tunnels and sewers and then tomb-raiding some of the sites. No attempts were made at doing meticulous science and research. These ticked me off.

But what really ticked me off, though, was the treatment of the villain, who we don't actually meet until several chapters on. And then he doesn't appear again until near the end. For a large part of the book, until all is revealed at the end, the villain's motivations were unconvincing and bewildering at best, contrived at worst. What's more, Gibbins kept referring to the villain's "henchmen" - can you say trite cliche, anyone? Who uses "henchmen" anymore outside of comic books? I kept imagining the villain at the end going, "If it weren't for those pesky kids...!" in the manner of Scooby Doo.

When we finally see what's contained in the Gospel of Jesus, it does help to explain why the villain doesn't want the contents revealed and would do anything to hide it from the world. I also understood how this Gospel would change the course of the Catholic church. Having said all that, the contents were still kind of...lame. That's what Jesus chose to reveal? It made sense as far as motivation for the characters, but as far as Jesus revealing some great, great truth about the world, it was...meh.

Aaand this is why this book took me almost four months - four - to finish. I'm a fast reader and never take this long to finish one book. But wow, this was really hard to get through. And I love archaeology mysteries, so that's saying a lot. I felt like the dialogue was just prop - Gibbins had lots of lazy writing, like the extensive reliance on italics to convey awe or delight or disbelief. He also peppered his narrative with cliches to convey feelings. Seriously, how much more can Jack's heart "pound" with excitement?

But, I will say this. Going to the sites and reading the background history of each was a delight, and loads of fun. I did love that part. The book opens on the eve of the Vesuvius eruption and for Gibbins to put the reader right there, in the heart of the action, was brilliant. I enjoyed reading about Boudica's rebellion and the history of St. Lawrence Jewry in London, I loved imagining what the Villa of the Papyri looked like in AD 79 and picturing in my head the Lupercale. It was great to pretend how I would feel if I discovered the long-lost Latin library as an archaeologist. I enjoyed reading aboout the warring monks inside the Holy Sepulchre. These things were what saved the book. The armchair archaeologist in me really enjoyed those parts of the story, and were the main reason I picked up this book in the first place. I only wished there were more of them.

Grade: C