My husband had gotten out Lincoln Child's latest novel The Third Gate (#236), and he thought I might be interested, because it was a thriller involving Egyptology. He was right, I was interested in reading this best-seller. He's a fan of the Preston Child novels, although this was my first book by either author.
It didn't take me long to read it because the action moved along swiftly, and it was entertaining enough, but at the end, I thought "That's it?!" If I had been to the movies to see The Third Gate (and I can see it lending itself easily to a screenplay) I would have walked out at the end and felt I had overpaid to see it.
Dr. Jeremy Logan is a an enigmalogist, called in by an old academic acquaintance to consult on an archaeological dig sponsored by the highly successful and secretive Porter Stone. Stone expects to find something incredible in the Sudd, an impenetrable swamp south of the Egyptian borders. He's assembled a team of the world's top talents for his project, but things have started to go wrong, and not everything has a rational explanation. That will be Logan's role - to explain the inexplicable; ghosts, Yetis, the Loch Ness monster - are all in a day's work for him.
Things do, in fact, go bump in the night, but there are way too many ends left that aren't neatly tied up in the end. Who, for instance, is the expedition's spy, and for what purpose? After things go boom! (literally!), that's pretty much it. I presume Mr. Child had other writing deadlines he needed to meet, and couldn't spend any more time on The Third Gate. It's too bad, because I feel this could have been a much better book than it is.
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