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3.6 AVERAGE
3.6 AVERAGE
Along the way he also finds the biggest treasure in the world - the long lost Library of Alexandria.
I Read this on the Internet Archive - Open Library - This is a Reread for me. I last read this 30 years ago in the early 1990s - one of my all time favourite Dirk Pitt books.
A typical Dirk Pitt novel with unbelievable, but fun, action. I felt the main treasure hunt was an interesting premise but the "find" was a little bit of a letdown.
"Or we can try plan three."
Giordino peered at Pitt curiously. "Can't be any worse than the first two." Then his eyes widened and he groaned. "You're not-oh, God, no!
May have some spoilers!!
This book started out confusing for me, all of Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels start off in the past, but this one started July 15, 391 A.D. That threw me for a moment. Though after my initial confusion things started to make more since.
In this ninth book we see Dirk Pitt looking for the tomb of Alexander the Great and the remains of his famous library, I found this very interesting as I have never heard of anything like it before. (Not big on history.) While this book starts out at a good pace I felt it kind of slowed down for me as the plots got deeper. While looking for this treasure Egypt is going into chaos as well as Mexico, then both presidents disappear. Along with Dirks father.
I was very intrigued by Dirk's father, Senator George Pitt, I can't remember him being mentioned in any other book unless it was just in passing, people saying who Dirk's father was or something. In this one we actually get a description of him! And he wasn't really what I had pictured, I guess I was looking as someone closer to Dirk in character, but other than a few things they didn't seem much alike at all to me. I wonder where Dirk gets his daring from, his curiosity for the unknown? His mother? Mentioning her this was the first time we ever heard of Dirk mother. And well it wasn't much to go on.
This book to me though I did really like it, and almost gave it four stars, I just couldn't it had to many hang ups for me, though some of the ending did make up for it. We start out with the lost treasure then that gets put on the back burner while the terrorist troubles came to the front, which I didn't see how there was any connection between the two and it took up most of the novel. Then at almost the end we get back to the treasure. I found the two plots wasn't very well intertwined like in the last books, I struggled to keep up at times. I think the book had a lot more potential but came away a good read anyways.
Also, I found it slightly ironic that as I read this book I was also reading news reports of the goings on in Egypt the last few weeks, and they sound about as bad as in the book!
Dirk and his sidekick Al Giordino are once again in the right place at the right time as they help rescue survivors from a downed aircraft in a fjord in Greenland. There they find an ancient roman shipwreck where a roman ship should never have been. This leads them to try to discover where the lost library of Alexandria has been hidden. Add in an uprising in both Mexico and Egypt and you've got the starting of a novel.
Treasure is an enjoyable romp if you can get above the sabre rattling of the politics and the casual misogyny of the main character. Dirk is very much an eighties man, much in the way James Bond was in the sixties. The actual story of finding a treasure lost for centuries and how they manage to track it down are actually good. The reason I loved these books were that it made the impossible seem possible. However today they seem banal and embarrassing. It's a shame because the basic storytelling is good.
