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[The Pharaoh Key] by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
Gideon Crew series Book #5
3.5★
Effective Engineering Solutions has been inexplicably shut down and the head of the company, Eli Glinn, has all but vanished. Fresh off a diagnosis that gives him only months to live, Gideon Crew is contacted by one of his coworkers at EES, Manuel Garza, who tells him the two have mere hours to collect their belongings before the office closes forever. After years of dedicated service and several high-risk missions, theirs seems like the most ignoble of terminations-until Gideon and Garza happen upon an incredible discovery. After centuries of silence, a code-breaking machine at EES has cracked the long-awaited translation of a centuries-old stone tablet, the Phaistos Disc, that dates back to an otherwise completely unknown, ancient civilization. The mysteries of the message itself hint at incredible treasures, and perhaps even a world-altering secret. What lies at the end of the trail may save Gideon's life-or bring it to a sudden, shocking close. As Gideon and Garza soon discover, some missions are more dangerous than others. But as Gideon has proved again and again, there's no such thing as too great a risk when you're living on borrowed time.I never miss an opportunity to indulge in a Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child book and when the Gideon Crew series came out a few years ago it seemed to be another "gift" from this pair of talented writers. Gideon is literally running out of time. As the novel opens he has now two months left to live and will do almost anything that would either cure him or give him a little longer. It would also have given the readers a "little longer" but Gideon didn't let us down even with this hanging over his head, The ending felt a little rushed and it didn't take long to know how it would all end...but you gave us a terrific ride Mr. Preston and Mr. Child.
