Legend

Legend by David L. Golemon
Event Group Series, book 2
Mass Market Paperback, 490 pages
St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2007
ISBN-13: 9780312945947

highly recommended

Synopsis

A river of no return. A treasure to die for…
The Event Group is comprised of the nation’s most brilliant men and women in the fields of science, philosophy, and the military. Led by Major Jack Collins, their job is to find the truth behind the world’s greatest unsolved myths. And this time, Collins and his crew will dare to uncover a terrifying secret—about the long-vanished tribe of the Incas—that’s buried deep within the Amazon Basin.
Some secrets go to the grave. Others become Legend
The last expedition into the depths and darkness of the Amazon claimed the lives of a female professor and her team. Now the Event Group, using cutting-edge technology exclusively designed by the U.S. military, will travel to the ends of the earth—from Brazil to the Little Bighorn to the Arlington National Cemetery—to bring new meaning to an ancient disaster…or bury the legend forever…or die trying.

My Thoughts:

The event group is a secret U. S. government organization that finds the answers behind the world's greatest myths. (Think X-Files.) There's a whole lot going on in this second Event Group novel, Legend. (The first was Event.)We have a 1534 expedition of Spaniards, a lost tribe, several weird creatures, treasure hunters, multiple conspiracies, a new expedition, and tie ins to the Vatican, Little Bighorn and the Arlington National Cemetery. It's an action/adventure novel that takes off running right at the start. There are a few problems. You have to suspend disbelief and go with the story, sometimes leaping without adequate explanation. The characters are not well developed - and there are a lot of them. Legend, though, delivers what it promises: real escapism.

Highly recommended - an especially good vacation book for action/adventure/sci-fi junkies

Quotes:

Amazonian River Basin

Summer AD 1534

The Spaniards let loose a volley of musket fire into the endless green of the jungle, not knowing if their lead shot struck anything more vital than fern or moss. opening

For three months they had endured the hellishness of the Peruvian mountains and Brazilian jungles, only to find they were alone in the most godforsaken area the expedition they had ever known. Only the good nature of his men, grateful to be away from the slave master Pizarro, had kept his small company in line. pg 6

Padilla reached down and, using both hands, gently picked up the animal and looked it over. It was breathing through its small nostrils and open mouth, but it also had what looked like the gills of a fish right where the small neck joined the head, three rows of soft skin arranged along its jawline, flaring and then closing as they, too, sought life sustaining air. pg. 14

Then among the screams of men and the dying echo of the gunshots they all heard a sound they would take with them to their graves. The roar was like a deep echo of the worst imaginable enraged demon from their nightmares. The horrid sound reverberated and sent chills down their spine. pg. 21

Madrid, Spain Present Day
The woman paced in the small, cluttered office, pausing for a brief moment to look at the old man sitting in the swivel chair behind an ancient mahogany desk. He was dressed in a chambray work shirt and wore carpenter’s overalls. The thick, horned-rimmed glasses would slide down his nose and he would absentmindedly push them back up to their proper place. He handled the old letter, a set of orders actually, carefully and with the necessary respect one had to show documents of that age. pg. 35

The archbishop regarded the letter once again and then held it out to Zachary. The mere mention of the lost expedition of Captain Padilla, a story handed down by word of mouth from Spaniard to Spaniard and which was fraught with tales of gold and mystery, the legendary El Dorado, was almost enough for him to stop talking immediately.
"You are to be congratulated at the very least for your persistence in digging up such a rare find as a Vatican document as important as this." pg. 37

Helen looked at the skeletal remains of the hand. They had been carefully packed in a soft foam cutout. The four fingers were long, at least seventeen inches from palm to tip. The thumb was half that length, and the bone was thick and very powerful looking. Three of the digits had very lethal-looking clawed tips. The other claws were obviously absent due to its extreme age. Patches of petrified flesh were visible.
"I’m afraid it barely qualifies as a fossil, Your Grace. We have estimated its age at only seven hundred years, give or take a decade, placing it in the time frame of the Padilla expedition." pg. 40