Temple in Aussie Readers

Nov 13, 2011 Bree T rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, historical-fiction, mystery, contemporary, suspense, australian, thriller, supernatural, military-thriller

William Race is an average kind of guy. He’s a linguist, working at a New York university when he turns up to work one day and finds his office overrun with Green Beret’s and important official-looking people. They need his superior language skills to read and translate a found hundred year old Latin American manuscript. Hidden within the manuscript are the directions to a very important tribal artifact – an artifact that has become a hotly contested prize for various powerful factions given tha William Race is an average kind of guy. He’s a linguist, working at a New York university when he turns up to work one day and finds his office overrun with Green Beret’s and important official-looking people. They need his superior language skills to read and translate a found hundred year old Latin American manuscript. Hidden within the manuscript are the directions to a very important tribal artifact – an artifact that has become a hotly contested prize for various powerful factions given that it is made from a substance called thyrium. It is not found on Earth naturally – it can be found only in the parts of meteorites that make it through the Earth’s atmosphere.

William is at first reluctant but the people in his office are persuasive. You only have to translate, they tell him. You can do it while we are en route to our destination (Peru) and then you can turn around and get the first flight home. Intimidated by the entourage, including the Green Beret whose sole job it is to protect Race’s life, he is swept along in an armed escort to the airport where they board a plane bound for Peru. Whilst on board, William begins to read the manuscript and we delve back 400 years into the past into the life of Alberto Santiago, a young monk who is in ‘New Spain’ as part of the Spanish “colonisation’, working in a prison, preaching to those incarcerated who are mostly natives. He is taken by a young native who demands to go free in order to protect something very important to his people. Alberto frees him and goes along with him in the journey to hide the idol from Hernando, the leader of the Spanish invaders who covets it for his own.

When they arrive in Peru, Race decides to stay with the team going in to extract the idol. This is going to prove a lot harder than it sounds as they are definitely not the only team looking for it and the Incans of long ago placed a little insurance policy of their own in the idol’s hiding place to forever warn off the foreigners who may want to come and take it for themselves…

Matthew Reilly books are a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. I prefer the Scarecrow novels but I really enjoyed this one. They read like an action blockbuster with lots of explosions, gun fights and spectacular stunts involving planes, helicopters, armored vehicles and just about every other sort of mode of transportation you can think of. At the moment this novel is stand alone but I’ve read an interview where Reilly says he’d like to do another William Race novel and I’d be happy to read one.

Race is supposed to be an average Joe kinda guy. Early 30s-ish, a mild-mannered language professor at a New York university. He’s lived a fairly quiet life after a relationship in college went sour. We don’t get a huge handle on his personal life but safe to say, there seems to be no one that notices when he disappears from home and work to go on this little surprise trip to Peru. Despite the fact that is supposed to be a regular guy, Race turns out to be not only fearless in the face of some situations and creatures that would make the most manliest of men mess their pants, but he also turns out to be a gun expert. And a pretty crack shot. Handy, that!

As the extras in this novel get picked off left, right and centre, Race makes it through relatively unscathed despite all the various enemies having about seven billion machine guns. I really wish that a company would make movies out of Reilly’s novels because they have the potential to be seriously awesome, if done right. I really have no idea about guns and planes and all those sorts of things so I’m sure the picture in my mind looks nothing what is actually supposed to be happening!

I really enjoyed the duel narrative, which is is split between Race in current day and then the monk, Alberto Santiago, 400 years ago as he goes on the mission to hide the Idol from the Spanish invaders. The similarities between the two were a nice touch – Race is the nice guy sucked into something that doesn’t really concern him and ends up playing a vital role (more vital than anyone could have guessed) much the same as Santiago did back in the 1500s.

As always with a Reilly novel, the plot is totally ridiculous but enjoyable and the pacing is fast fast fast! I always feel like I’m running a marathon while I’m reading them, I’m out of breath (or holding it!) waiting for the next big explosion or crazy stunt. Race is no Scarecrow Schofield but he’ll do until I get my hands on Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves! ...more

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