Basic Summary: Decker and Callie help Holly when she brings them what seems to be an ancient relic that Holly’s husband died to protect. Jungle adventure ensues.
Warnings: It is an adventure/thriller type book and violence does go along with that.
Review
Setting
The novel opens with Holly getting a package and right away having to run from men who are after her. This is a really good way to get to the point of the story. With that scene we know how the rest of the book is going to go and that’s a good thing for adventure books like this. I’m happy it didn’t spend loads of time on explanation and setting at the tail beginning. The majority of this book takes place in the jungle and I don’t know a lot factually about the jungle but there wasn’t anything that seemed off. There was a scene that took me out of the book where one of the characters performs CPR. How it was described in the book (“…she placed hands under his ribs…”), it just seemed not accurate. Also, the character that had CPR done on him did not have his ribs broken which is VERY rare. I tried to keep in mind that people will have creative license especially with things like CPR but it took me out of that scene.
Characters
I had a hard time relating to any of the characters. The main characters Decker and Callie came off as too perfect for my taste. They never seemed to be in a bad mood towards one another and they always had the right intuition on things for no other real reason than because they have good intuition. They’re also extremely well off. So, it’s just these perfect people doing heroic stuff. I wanted flaws in them. Another example is there comes a time when Callie helps give children vaccinations in the jungle. It was a weird scene because I couldn’t remember or find any instance where Callie says she has training in giving injections to people. So, I thought this was not very accurate for someone who does have training to allow her to help give injections.
Then there were the “bad guys” who were stereo typically bad. They didn’t have a nice bone in their body. Good guys are good and bad guys are terrible. I wish there had been more depth to all the characters. I should note, however, that this may just be the genre. I’ve only read a few archaeological type adventure books and this seems to follow suit with a lot of others.
Plot
The plot is straight forward and singular. There isn’t a lot of side plots except a sort of love side plot with Holly which I found to be a bit odd. The plot is also easy to follow and it is tied up at the end. I will say that the author does a good job of not letting things get boring as far as storyline goes. Event after event happens and keeps the reader turning the page with a “What is going to happen next” feeling.
Overall
This book is set in a series and there are books that come before it so maybe if I read those, my mind will change on Decker and Callie as characters. As it were, they just had the “too perfect” thing going on for me. I think this is a great book for those who tend to like Indiana Jones stories and where you know with absolute certainty who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.
May you get lost in a book,
Chrissy