So I never really intended to read this book. I had never heard of Mrs. Martinusen or her work. But I happened to stumble across it while I was wandering the library and it looked interesting enough to pick up and take home.
I suppose the premise of the book was interesting, but I'm not sure if it was the writing style or the dispensing of information that kept me from enjoying it.
The whole thing about the blue tile was, as I read in a different review, anticlimactic. They went through all the trouble to get the pieces together and ended finding the cave without it. Oh-kay...
And then, I don't know, I had a really weird picture of Kate in my mind which prevented me from feeling much emotion for her as a character. Abbie was the stereotyped little kid. Connie was a little too much, I thought. There is a point between relating to your readers through brand names and titles and ect. and silliness, and I think she passed it a few times. But that's just me.
Ian was definitely my favorite character, even though he wasn't mentioned much. Jack was all right I suppose and the rest weren't too memorable.
For the action of the book and everything, hidden Nazi treasure and kidnapping and revenge - they're all interesting topics, but I felt as if they weren't handled very carefully. There were times when I skipped over long pages of information to get to the parts I was interested in.
Her dialogue was mostly good, for which I give her credit. It's hard to pull off good dialogue with characters that are difficult to relate to, but only Abbie really was hopelessly stereotyped by her lines.
This book had a promising start but failed to live up to its beginning in the end. The mystery, the search, it all just sort of crumbled apart and nothing was relevant anymore.