|
THE CODEX
By: Douglas Preston
Tor Books, New York
April 2005 (pb)
Douglas Preston is one half of the best-selling writing team of Douglas
Preston and Lincoln Child. Together the two have authored some great
thrillers, such as Relic, which was made into a pretty mediocre movie
adaptation; Reliquary; and Still Life with Crows. Another of their team
efforts, Thunderhead, is a very good archaeology thriller and I hope to
review it in the near future.
In the meantime, Douglas Preston's The Codex, is a wonderful example of an
old-fashioned adventure yarn (with an archaeology back story, of course)
with a picaresque atmosphere to it. Briefly stated, the premise of the story
goes like this: Maxwell Broadbent, a man made very wealthy by his career of
tomb raiding and operating on the shady edges of the antiquities trade,
summons his three adult sons - the uptight lawyer, Philip; the hippy dippy
lost soul, Vernon; and the Gary Cooper-like large animal veterinarian (who
wishes he had become a paleontologist), Tom-to tell them (via a video) that
he is dying of cancer and that he's taken all of his objets d'art (including
Old Master paintings, pre-Columbian artifacts, etc., worth more than $500
million) to a lost tomb hidden deep in the Honduran jungles --one he had
looted forty years earlier. He has locked himself up in the tomb, with his
riches, and if his sons hope to recover these treasures-their
inheritance-they must find the jungle tomb!
What follows is a great adventure story as the three brothers, none of them
feeling much affection for each other, first begin the hunt separately and
then eventually join forces to find the old man's tomb - and their love and
dedication to each other. Tom Broadbent, the main protagonist of the novel,
is at first reluctant to join in the treasure hunt-he is perfectly happy to
continue his life of anonymous well-being treating sick horses on an Indian
reservation in the Southwest. But the lovely and dedicated Sally Colorado
beseeches him to hit the trail in search of Dad's treasure because it
includes an ancient Mayan Codex --hence the title of the book-that will give
to the world all the secrets of Mayan herbal and plant medicines and
homeopathic treatments of disease, long rumored to have been the most
advanced medicinal knowledge known to man. This promise of the potential
life-saving nature of the treasures hidden in the Honduran tomb, rather than
the promise of personal riches -plus the fact that Sally Colorado is a
pretty nifty babe-convinces Tom to join the hunt.
This is a classic adventure story, complete with renegade tomb raiders, rain
forest indigenes with bow and arrows and blowguns, deadly swamps and
rainforests-the whole nine yards. Douglas Preston doesn't break any new
literary ground here-we've got elements of H. Rider Haggard, Conan Doyle,
"Romancing the Stone," and more than a tip of the fedora is owed to Indiana
Jones-but he does it very well and it's a great light-reading read for the
beach or in front of the fireplace.
Three and half trowels for this one!
Back to Review Page
|
