Will Adams’ debut novel arrives with the unfortunate title of THE ALEXANDER CIPHER, immediate bringing to mind — what else? — Dan Brown’s THE DA VINCI CODE. With its thinking-man protagonist finding love while adventuring for a historical artifact — in this case, the lost tomb of Alexander — that’s exactly what it reads like, minus the burning desire to tear through it.
You’ve read this before even if you haven’t read CIPHER before. Probably about five years too late to capitalize on CODE’s heat, this by-the-numbers thriller fails to ignite and fails to excite. And that’s even with elements of a necropolis, a foiled rape, a sandstorm, a trip through catacombs, et al.
I confess without guilt that after the halfway point was reached, I had to start skimming. Mind you, it’s not incompetent on the level of, say, THE MEDICI DAGGER; if anything, its greatest crime is not trying anything new on for size. —Rod Lott
“He swung his scuba tank like a wrecking ball into Hassan’s solar plexus, doubling him over.”
and
“Knox stretched both arms around the big man’s waist, made a fist of his right hand, thumb just below the solar plexus, then squeezed his abdomen with a sharp upward thrust.”
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Thing is, everything I keep hearing from our foreign agent and sales reps is that their buyers want more of this historical adventure stuff. Seems that there are a lot of readers out there who still can’t get enough.
The only novel I’ve read in this vein that was actually good was THE HISTORIAN; there’s a gold mine awaiting somebody who can churn out stuff like Clive Cussler–books that are obviously done by the numbers but are fun, exciting reads anyway. If books like THE ALEXANDER CIPHER continue down this path of snoozeworthiness, that teeming mass of readers who “can’t get enough” will eventually catch on to the fact that they’re getting scammed.
Doesn’t help that Steve Berry’s The Venetian Betrayal covered the ‘search for Alexander’s tomb’ barely a year ago.
Though I must say, I’m one of those ‘teeming masses’ who love these sort of adventure/history puzzle sort of thing. If it was well-written and does what a novel should – take me for a brain vacation – I’d still buy it even if it covered some of the same territory. A good story well told never goes wrong with me.