Believe it or not, The Mask of Atreus (#114) by A. J. Hartley, was only the third book I started while traveling to and from Australia, but it is a thriller that kept me occupied for a great deal of the time on journey home.
A mysterious phone call sends Deborah Miller back to the small Atlanta museum where she works in order to check on the welfare of her boss and beloved mentor, Richard Dixon. She finds his body, and a cache of Mycenaean artifacts in a hidden room. She soon finds herself a suspect in Dixon's murder, but also a target as someone waits for her in her apartment, and tries to run her car into a concrete barrier on the highway. Why was Dixon keeping the Greek articles secret? What did Richard have in his possesion that was worth mudering him and what did his murderer take with him? Who is the anymous caller who tipped her off? And what do events at the end of WWII have to do with what is happening now? Deborah tries to find answers in Greece and in Russia to solve one mystery only to have the entire puzzle shift. Can she find out what is really going on before the forces behind the series of murders connected to the case get to her, too?
Twist, and twist again, the plot keeps you turning the pages. Is it really Greek antiquities everyone is after, or something else, darker and more dangerous? The answer didn't turn out to be what I was expecting at all.
I particularly enjoyed this thriller because of its locales in Athens and Mycenae. It helped me envision the action when I could picture the sites Hartley describes. When Deborah is at Mycenae and she is looking down the valley towards the sea and listening to the goats, that is exactly what I remember about the place, the sounds of the goats' bells tinkling as they climbed the hills around the site as they grazed. Ah, memories... I'm just glad no one was pursuing me through the ruins with deadly intent. I wouldn't have been nearly as resourceful as Deborah!
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