She Treads Softly: The Lost Tomb

Thursday, December 7, 2023

The Lost Tomb

The Lost Tomb: And Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder by Douglas Preston
12/5/23; 320 pages
Grand Central Publishing

The Lost Tomb: And Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder by Douglas Preston is a very highly recommended collection of thirteen nonfiction articles Preston has written over the years.

Preston is, indeed, the best-selling fiction writing partner with Lincoln Child of the Aloysius Pendergast series, but he is also a well respected nonfiction writer. David Grann writes the forward to these thirteen fascinating, remarkable features, many of which I remember reading in the original publications. Each selection is followed by updated information. It is wonderful to have all these articles together in one place along with the updates. The Lost Tomb is compelling reading and not to be missed.

Contents include:
Uncommon Murders: Buried Treasure (a personal search for a friend and a treasure); The Monster of Florence (in search of a serial killer in Italy)
Unexplained Deaths: The Skeletons at the Lake (hundreds of skeletons found at a lake high in the Himalayas); The Skiers at Dead Mountain (the death of a group of skiers in the Ural Mountains); The Skeleton on the Riverbank (who was Kennewick man?)
Unsolved Mysteries: The Mystery of Oak Island (the center of treasure hunting for over 200 years); The Mystery of Sandia Cave (Frank Hibben and the discovery of the 20,000 year old Sandia Man); The Mystery of Hell Creek (extraordinary record in North Dakota of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs)
Curious Crimes: The Clovis Point Con (how did the ancient Clovis mammoth hunters create their weapons?); Trial by Fury (The Amanda Knox case and ultimate acquittal)
Old Bones: Skeletons in the Closet (museums storage of skeletons that Native Americans want the right to bury); Cannibals of the Canyon (a terrible truth about a prehistoric civilization in the American Southwest); The Lost Tomb (the discovery of the sepulchre containing the many sons of Ramesses the Great)

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.