She Treads Softly: The Pharaoh Key

Sunday, July 15, 2018

The Pharaoh Key

The Pharaoh Key by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Grand Central Publishing: 6/22/18
eBook review copy; 320 pages
ISBN-13: 9781455525829
Gideon Crew Series #5

The Pharaoh Key by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child is a highly recommended final novel and fitting ending (?) to the Gideon Crew series.

Gideon Crew has a brain arteriovenous malformation or AVM, and has about two months left to live, however, he will remain strong and mobile right until the end so the doctor's advice is for him to live every minute the best way he can. He and his engineer colleague Manuel Garza have also discovered, after not being paid for months and no word of warning from their employer Eli Glinn that they no longer have a job with Effective Engineering Solutions, EES. Garza calls Crew telling him that they have a few hours to clear their belongings out of the office.

While gathering what they can, they discover that a code-breaking computer at EES, after working on it for almost five years, has cracked the code found on the centuries-old stone tablet, the Phaistos Disc. With some sleight of hand, the two smuggle out a copy of the findings on a flash drive. The two work on deciphering the data and agree to split the treasure they expect to find. Their destination is the remote and forbidden zone of the Hala’ib Triangle in southeastern Egypt. The treasure hunt involves one mishap and disaster after another, but still Crew and Garza keep pressing on to the remote location.

The Pharaoh Key is a fast paced, enjoyable action/adventure novel that involves more than one unexpected twist. Although reading the previous novels will give you additional background information and character development, I think you can enjoy this one as a stand-alone for the sheer value of the escapism and adventure it will provide. Are there some unanswered questions? Sure. Lucky coincidences? Yup. Miraculous escapes? Uh huh. But is it a page-turner? Oh, yes! Adding to the action, Preston and Child manage to keep the tone light and even evoke a few laughs while providing an entertaining adventure, which, in the end is worthy of at least 4 out of 5 stars (and only rated in comparison against their other novels). Preston and Child know how to write well-paced entertaining story and that was certainly the case here. I enjoyed reading The Pharaoh Key

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Grand Central Publishing via Netgalley.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.