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The Bones of Odin (Matt Drake #1)

by David Leadbeater (Goodreads Author)

3.75 of 5 stars 3.75 · rating details · 118 ratings · 28 reviews

Did ancient Gods like Odin and Zeus and Thor once really exist?

The time has come for a grand adventure filled with high excitement and explosive action.

Matt Drake, a retired SAS officer, must unravel a mystery older than time in his search for the Nine Pieces of Odin. Though scattered aeons ago, it is believed that once the Pieces are reunited they will show the way to t...more

Kindle Edition, 267 pages

Published 2011

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Jan 15, 2013 R. Murry rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Bones of Odin
By David Leadbeater

Reviewed by R. Murry

If you’re a speed reader, you’ll have to slow down you’re pace to enjoy this fast pace a la Indiana Jones type adventure story. In this action filled novel, there are more action characters than one.
Matt Drake is the catalyst that brings them all together to try and uncover The Bones of Odin.

Odin was a mythical god. Or was he real? A shield is uncovered, which leads to the coming together of all the pieces, leading to whether the myth is tr...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Jack rated it 4 of 5 stars

The first two pages/screens are about the only calm in this storm of a book. Fast-paced describes the beginning of the book, and then the action ramps up by the third chapter. There is only "up" until the last page.

Basic premise: artifacts based upon the "myth" of Odin are real, and when combined could mean the end of the world. Matt Drake, a pseudo-retired SAS officer, is inadvertently drawn into the search for the pieces, as is his friend Ben, a computer wunderkind initially teaching Matt phot...more

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May 29, 2012 Paul Montgomery rated it 1 of 5 stars

Brief Summary - Matt Drake, former SAS man, now working as a freelance photographer gets caught up in a plan to find the nine pieces of Odin, assembling a puzzle which may well lead to the end of the world. His old talents are tried to the limits as he fights to save his friends, find the pieces of Odin, and save the day.

The Bones of Odin is not without some charm - the lead characters are fairly likeable, and dialogue is comfortable. However, that's pretty much the only real positive I can find...more Brief Summary - Matt Drake, former SAS man, now working as a freelance photographer gets caught up in a plan to find the nine pieces of Odin, assembling a puzzle which may well lead to the end of the world. His old talents are tried to the limits as he fights to save his friends, find the pieces of Odin, and save the day.

The Bones of Odin is not without some charm - the lead characters are fairly likeable, and dialogue is comfortable. However, that's pretty much the only real positive I can find. The basic story is a low-quality version of the recently-popular genre brought into prominence by The Da Vinci Code. I'll admit to some guilty pleasures in similar books (Preston and Child are favourites of mine), but this is definitely one of the poorer versions. Most of these books run along the lines of: hero stumbles across ancient conspiracy/prophecy, rushes to save the world, gets chased by shadowy conspiracy group, goes from A to B to C to D to collect various pieces/clues (usually just too late, or just ahead of the bad guys), eventually finds the last piece in time to make sense of the whole thing, realises it's a bit of a misunderstanding, saves the day, goes home. Usually gets the girl.

So it is with The Bones of Odin. Only, it's pretty poorly done. Getting Drake into the story is poorly handled coincidence of the highest order. The bad guys are phenomenally rubbish. The introduction of the love interest, the shocking plot holes, and the whole chase are disappointing. The McGuffins (the 9 pieces of Odin) which are meant to be assembled to point to something or other are actually nothing, and have no bearing on any of the prophecy or clues. Coincidence works in with the most appalling timing (Classic example, a team of crack SAS-types are exploring a cavern, and have been for a while. The moment they realise that the floor they're standing on is a trap, it goes off. The very moment. Twaddle.) Inconsistencies litter the book. To list all the flaws would fill pages here (but I do have to highlight that I'm pretty sure the SAS would do psych tests of some description - especially an elite branch of the SAS).

However, the most grating thing about the whole exercise is Leadbeater's obsession with simile and analogy. Most of which are utterly painful, but manage to crop up on almost every page. It swiftly degenerates into parody in the same way that Cat did in the later series of Red Dwarf (when he was reduced to doing nothing more than comparing situations to out-of-date clothing styles and such). If, however, you find phrases like "It was colder than a polar bear's scrotum" to be the height of quality, you may well enjoy this.

I do try to find something positive in every book, and I would re-emphasise that the trio of lead characters are well-defined (ignoring the shockingly poor way they're brought into the story), and actually pretty likeable. However, I would remind Leadbeater that you don't have to attack the reader with the backstory of a character immediately upon introduction. Some things can be hinted at, and introduced slowly. The dialogue is, surprisingly smooth.

Overall, a clumsy piece, that's not without charm(less)

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Mar 11, 2013 Kat Lebo rated it 2 of 5 stars

The Bones of Odin
David Leadbeater

Warning: There be spoilers here (with apologies to Scotty from Star Trek IV).

I started this novel on February 27th and finished it in the wee hours of this morning, March 11th. It doesn’t usually take me almost two weeks to read a novel. Let’s look at why it took so long with this one.

First, let’s find out about the author. David Leadbeater is a UK author who has written 4 books in the Matt Drake series (of which The Bones of Odin is the first) and one book in T...more

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May 05, 2013 Jane Blanchard rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Bones of Odin by David Leadbeater is a page-turning thriller. Former SAS soldier and now photographer, Matt Drake and his computer-skilled apprentice, Ben witness the robbery of Odin's Shield, a recently found Norse archeological artifact while at a photo assignment. After Matt stops a few assailants with his SAS skills, the attackers come after him and Ben. Matt and Ben escape and then fly to Paris where they meet Kennedy Moore in an internet cafe. The New York police officer, mistaking Ben...more

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May 08, 2012 Clive Johnson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Leadbetter’s book, ‘The Bones of Odin’, is a well written and fast-paced British action thriller, that sees Matt Drake, ex-SAS, drawn back into his old profession from his faltering attempts at living a civvy life. He and his younger lodger, Ben, are at a fashion show - where Matt’s the photographer -when a newly discovered Viking shield, then being used as the centrepiece, is suddenly stolen from under the very noses of the world’s press, in a paramilitary operation that sets the tone and pace...more Leadbetter’s book, ‘The Bones of Odin’, is a well written and fast-paced British action thriller, that sees Matt Drake, ex-SAS, drawn back into his old profession from his faltering attempts at living a civvy life. He and his younger lodger, Ben, are at a fashion show - where Matt’s the photographer -when a newly discovered Viking shield, then being used as the centrepiece, is suddenly stolen from under the very noses of the world’s press, in a paramilitary operation that sets the tone and pace for the rest of the book.

We start off in York before soon following Matt and Ben, as they flee pursuit for the photographic evidence they’ve accidentally captured. They follow clues that Ben gathers from his internet research along the way, first to Paris and then on to sites further afield around the world, in their quest to discover the whereabouts and significance of Odin’s Shield and its place in an ancient, elaborate and convoluted trap that threatens to bring the world to an end. They find themselves in a race with a number of different paramilitary and national interests, but largely driven by the maniacal fervour of a mystery billionaire collector.

Steadily, they gather together a posse of disparate characters from different policing and military operations, as they race through a series of encounters along the scattered path formed by Odin’s treasures. Each encounter is packed with indiscriminate carnage, bloodshed and mayhem, with the race inevitably drawing to a tense conclusion as the competing elements finally battle it out to the death. Will the world be saved, will the various love interests be consummated, will the baddies die and the goodies live?

I found Leadbetter’s story fun and easy to read, with characters that were both sufficiently three-dimensional and described sympathetically enough that I could empathise with them. There are some nice mundane touches that balance the incessant weight of action, such as Ben’s familial concerns that see him reassuring family members by phone whilst amidst the action. What this device did also do, though, was to bring out the largely unreal nature of the story. This is not a criticism as such, more a comment on the nature of the genre, where the action bias draws parallels with D&D type computer games. This parallel was even commented on by Drake’s character: ‘Level up? He thought. Christ, he’d been ‘retro-ing’ it too much with Sonic the damn Hedgehog.’

Yes, certainly more so towards the end, but the scenarios seemed to mimic episodes or levels in a computer game narrative. This aspect was also reinforced by the ease with which access seemed to be gained to various long-hidden locations, and the introduction of features that appeared to have no significance to the story, such as the plethora of disparate gods’ tombs that make an appearance late in the story, or the oblique reference to what was in the last tomb, thereafter never answered.

Don’t get me wrong, this was a good action thriller with plenty of energy to keep you turning the pages, laced with some well researched and supportive Viking lore that lent weight, fabric and enough intrigue to the tale. It was all carried along quite nicely by a broad cast of archetypal characters, each with hints of some individual colour. Commendably, the writing style and standard was high, making it an easy story to get into quickly and a joy to follow, with many descriptive allusions that were a pleasure to read.

If action, adventure and wholesale carnage is your thing, with an interest in Viking mysteries and admiration for such military elites as the SAS, then this is the book for you. It’s one you can dip into at any time, be it on the bus or train, or during a break at work, and lose nothing of the story, the pace or the impact which Leadbetter’s so obviously adept at maintaining.
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Feb 19, 2013 Ryan Rauber rated it 1 of 5 stars

This book was a big swing and a miss for me. Normally this genre would be right in my wheelhouse. I found the whole thing just too far-fetched from the beginning. Matt Drake, a former SAS soldier, is now a photographer at an event showcasing the reveal of a recent Nordic artifact known as the Shield of Odin. Suddenly a team of spec-ops soldiers bursts into the event, firing away, and steals the shield. From there, Drake is suddenly the lead of a multi-national team to find and retrieve the shiel...more

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Jun 24, 2012 Naomi Leadbeater rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read about half of this book Saturday in between doing laundry and a number of other things like arranging plants and pots in my shade garden and chopping off the bottom of a 'stump-tree'. Eventually I got sick of gardening and decided it was time for a nap. I swear I had to get up to finish the book because I fell asleep and dreamed I was looking for the World Tree. Apparently there was no resisting reading the book. In the end I just got up without having a nap and finished the book, it seem...more

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May 29, 2012 Scott Whitmore rated it 4 of 5 stars

"The Bones of Odin" by David Leadbeater (@dleadbeater2011) is an fast-paced thrill-ride of a book where the action starts on page 1 and doesn't let up as hero Matt Drake and his cohorts battle the bad guys throughout locales as exotic as Paris and as dangerous as the inside of a supervolcano.

My taste in genres is pretty broad. I like a deep, introspective mystery or epic sci-fi saga as much as the next person, but sometimes as a reader I want to dive into something a bit more straightforward. T...more "The Bones of Odin" by David Leadbeater (@dleadbeater2011) is an fast-paced thrill-ride of a book where the action starts on page 1 and doesn't let up as hero Matt Drake and his cohorts battle the bad guys throughout locales as exotic as Paris and as dangerous as the inside of a supervolcano.

My taste in genres is pretty broad. I like a deep, introspective mystery or epic sci-fi saga as much as the next person, but sometimes as a reader I want to dive into something a bit more straightforward. To grab some popcorn, settle into my seat and get swept away as the bullets fly and bodies fall into bottomless pits. "The Bones of Odin" absolutely delivered and I had a lot of fun reading it.

If (when, hopefully) some smart person in Hollywood decides to turn "Bones" into a movie, there is no doubt in my mind it will be a Summer Blockbuster starring the latest stars. There are plenty of big action scenes, starting with the opening set in York, England at — of all things — a fashion show attacked by masked terrorists.

There is also a mystery here, a riddle revolving around the mythology of Odin, the Norse "Father of all Gods and Men" and the Nine Pieces of Odin, which may spell the end of the world as we know it if put together just right. This mystery propels the action forward, as ex-SAS officer Drake and his team — including a damaged New York City detective and a naive university student/musician — race to collect the Pieces before the bad guys.

That's bad guys, plural, and they are truly deliciously drawn in their evilness.

On the flip side, the good guys are good but not infallible, and one of the things I enjoyed was how Drake came to terms with the fact that he is no longer capable of the same feats as while on active service with the SAS. The dialogue and interplay between the characters sparkles, which means even exposition-heavy scenes as Drake and crew unravel the mystery don't slow the flow of the story.

I highly recommend adding "The Bones of Odin" to your eReader of choice for the beach, on a fishing trip, the airplane ride, those lazy summer days and nights — anywhere, really. It is a fast, fun and exciting read, and I'm pleased to see Mr. Leadbeater has a second Matt Drake book out, which is going on my To-Read List.
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May 08, 2012 Tenya Ingalls rated it 4 of 5 stars

Action, Action and more... Action!

My initial reaction to just having finished this book is that I really enjoyed the treasure hunt aspect of the plot based upon archaeological artifacts and Norse mythology. It is an action-packed book written in a style which paces the reader through the turbulent and violent action scenes by interspersing it with short pauses to catch one's breath. It's easy to read, well-written, and I believe I would enjoy reading more of the author's series about Matt Drake....more

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Jul 18, 2012 Christopher Everest rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime

This was exciting. I do like a bit of Norseness as an historical background and I would have liked that to have been engaged with on a larger scale. I tried to develop the concept of "The Berserker Librarian" but I couldn't find a publisher. I do like my hero and his main squeeze to grow during a series and for the first book this bodes well. Matt Drake has as much right to an existence as Mitch Rapp or Ben Hope so I look forward to book 2 which I will start as soon as I finish typing this sente...more

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Nov 10, 2012 Sara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Straight from the start this book introduces us to the action !! Matt Drake is an ex sas soldier who stumbles into the world of viking myth and legend but emerges as saviour of armageddon albiet with an arsenal of military secret service agents friends and geeks at this disposal ! It is nice to read an archeological action thriller that does not include the typical templar, grail, or religious quests. This added to the fact it has a female enemy who is a match for Drakes physical and verbal assa...more

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Apr 11, 2012 Nigel rated it 5 of 5 stars

I got this book on the strength of a recommendation from Amazon......... And I am so glad I did . What a refreshing change to have an archeological thriller about Norse mythology for a change .
Great well developed characters and a good dose of humor, and a really good story line making you want more and loved the references to rock songs a nice addition.
Looking forward to more Matthew Drake and his friends.

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Apr 18, 2013 Cheryl Carpinello rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was okay. The premise wss interesting and engaging. What kept distracting me were the English idioms. Most I had to stop and think about. For an American audience, these should have been modified as usually happens when a book is released to a different audience.

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Apr 30, 2013 Patrick rated it 5 of 5 stars

Indiana Jones like stuff but with tough special forces, CIA,NYPD... Serious bad guys. Main characters do get killed. I love this book and the series. You have to read them in order. Odin, Blood God, Tomb of the Gods, Gates of Hell.

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Dec 23, 2012 Sabrina Gielen rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. The characters were not really complex but relatable. The story was as intriguing as a Dan Brown book but without the controversy. Made me feel like a regular person could uncover ancient mysteries and have extraordinary adventures!

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Mar 19, 2013 Magdalena rated it 4 of 5 stars

It is fast and action packed, but towards the end it became a little too far-reached.
I still like it and plan to continue reading following books, but that is the reason I only gave 4 stars.

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Jan 12, 2013 Fred rated it 5 of 5 stars

Indiana Jones meets James Bond. Totally unbelievable but a great adventure and easy read. Thoroughly enjoyed it

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Jan 20, 2013 David colledge rated it 3 of 5 stars

Better than a dan brown
Not quite as good as a Scott Mariani
Still good fun and an easy read

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Apr 28, 2012 Susan Freeman rated it 4 of 5 stars

Quite enjoyed reading this authors first book but must admit in certain parts found some sentences hard to follow and understand. The story was good though and will definitely have a read of the follow up book.

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Sep 12, 2012 Don Jenks rated it 1 of 5 stars

I didn't like the writing style in this book. It seems disjointed and unorganized.

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Mar 05, 2013 David Mackinnon rated it 5 of 5 stars

A hell of a book..loads of action. Bought the whole series

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May 04, 2012 Harish Puvvula rated it 2 of 5 stars

May be, it is not my kind of a book.

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Aug 06, 2012 Simon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Entertaining nonsense

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Nov 19, 2012 Vivienne Thomson rated it 4 of 5 stars

fab!

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Dec 15, 2012 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: triologies

This was a great escape adventure story. Can't wait to read the next book in the series!!!

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Apr 30, 2013 David Stimpson rated it 1 of 5 stars

no sorry did not like at all ..had to finish it ..wish i had not

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Mar 29, 2013 Beth rated it 5 of 5 stars

Just say NO to Amazon Invasion.

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May 19, 2013 Dan Bowie rated it 4 of 5 stars

May 18, 2013 Jon Goody rated it 4 of 5 stars

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About David Leadbeater

International bestselling author of the Matt Drake Thriller Series and three UK #1s, The Bones of Odin, The Tomb of the Gods and Chosen. I have also published a short ghost story set in my home town - York - based on local legends. The books are available on all eBook reading devices.

NEW website - www.davidleadbeater.com

Reader of multiple genres. Husband. Father of two beautiful girls, aged 2 and...more

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The Bones of Odin (Matt Drake #1)

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