The Alexander Cipher by Will Adams (2007)
Read: May 2011
Another one of those charity shop buys - a brick paperback of a rolicking adventure centred around finding the tomb of Alexander. We picked it up because of the Egypt connection to have a light read.
We were having a discussion recently about how we are going to get all these books onto our next posting whenever we leave Cairo (we've filled three shelves on the bookcase and now one and a half of these have a double layer of books!) and I said that maybe we just take the 'Egypt' books we really like and leave some others behind "Like this one, The Alexander Cipher!" but Scotty replied that actually it wasn't a bad book - so I thought I'd better read it to be sure.
He was right, it's not a bad book at all. I've finished it in just about a week of bus journies I think (I've got a bus book and a bed book right now) partly because it wasn't a hard read, but also because it was a quick moving story that meant you wanted to pick it up again.
Thr first third of the book jumps between a few different characters and gradually their stories converge. The female lead, Gaille, is a bit too wet for my liking - the author hasn't quite managed to gain my sympathy for her. Knox, the male lead, is a bit more get up and go and his plans whilst audacious do manage to get pulled off. Whilst their stories converge in the present, there is also a back story to do with the death of Gaille's father, Knox's parents and Elaina's husband. This does seem far fetched that the back story is linked and that none of them had met eachother before.
What I enjoyed most about this book was reading about the places we know here in Egypt. Yes I've read books set in Cairo and Alex before, but here they visited Sharm, Tanis and the delta and Siwa with its coastal road. Scott had read this before our trip to Siwa last month with the P's and I can see why he was so excited to go there and search out the Temple of Amon himself. Great stuff. There was just one point towards the end where it was hard to keep track of who was dead, nearly dead, or shooting who. The story itself left it open to almost write a sequal, but I doubt it.
OK - so this ones a keeper!
Read: May 2011
Another one of those charity shop buys - a brick paperback of a rolicking adventure centred around finding the tomb of Alexander. We picked it up because of the Egypt connection to have a light read.
We were having a discussion recently about how we are going to get all these books onto our next posting whenever we leave Cairo (we've filled three shelves on the bookcase and now one and a half of these have a double layer of books!) and I said that maybe we just take the 'Egypt' books we really like and leave some others behind "Like this one, The Alexander Cipher!" but Scotty replied that actually it wasn't a bad book - so I thought I'd better read it to be sure.
He was right, it's not a bad book at all. I've finished it in just about a week of bus journies I think (I've got a bus book and a bed book right now) partly because it wasn't a hard read, but also because it was a quick moving story that meant you wanted to pick it up again.
Thr first third of the book jumps between a few different characters and gradually their stories converge. The female lead, Gaille, is a bit too wet for my liking - the author hasn't quite managed to gain my sympathy for her. Knox, the male lead, is a bit more get up and go and his plans whilst audacious do manage to get pulled off. Whilst their stories converge in the present, there is also a back story to do with the death of Gaille's father, Knox's parents and Elaina's husband. This does seem far fetched that the back story is linked and that none of them had met eachother before.
What I enjoyed most about this book was reading about the places we know here in Egypt. Yes I've read books set in Cairo and Alex before, but here they visited Sharm, Tanis and the delta and Siwa with its coastal road. Scott had read this before our trip to Siwa last month with the P's and I can see why he was so excited to go there and search out the Temple of Amon himself. Great stuff. There was just one point towards the end where it was hard to keep track of who was dead, nearly dead, or shooting who. The story itself left it open to almost write a sequal, but I doubt it.
OK - so this ones a keeper!
No comments:
Post a Comment