Sunday 16 June 2013

VICTORIAN THRILLER: Carver's Quest - Nick Bennison

Release Date: 04/06/13
Publisher:  Atlantic Books

SYNOPSIS:
It is 1870. When amateur archaeologist Adam Carver and his loyal but obdurate retainer Quint are visited in their lodgings in London's Doughty Street by an attractive young woman, their landlady is not pleased. The visitor's arrival pitches Carver and Quint headlong into an elaborate mystery which comes to centre on the existence (or not) of a lost text in Ancient Greek, one that may reveal the whereabouts of the treasure hoard of Philip II of Macedonia. Two deaths soon ensue as master and manservant follow what clues they can grasp in the roughest and most genteel parts of the teeming metropolis, with the whiff of cordite and blackmail never far from their nostrils. The scene shifts to Athens and the wilder fastness of a Greece gripped by political unrest as Carver and Quint join forces with Adam's former Cambridge tutor in an attempt to track down the elusive text. But nothing is quite what it seems, and no one involved is prepared for the final, shocking denouement amidst the extraordinary hilltop monasteries of Meteora...


REVIEW:

Now this was a book that I picked up on a whim. After all I love a story that takes me on a journey, I love spending time in Victorian London, I love having a build-up where action meets brains and of course I love a story that takes me on a break neck pace as matters of importance take the principle player is thrown into a historical mystery all round makes this something that I’ve really been looking forward to.

However upon starting this, I had two major problems, firstly I didn’t like the principle character and secondly the pace was dragged down so much by detailing that it slowed to a crawl. It didn’t grip me as it should have done and all round when I lose interest due to disappointments the book is a real struggle to get through. On the whole it was OK but sadly all round not enough to save me,

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