Author: Linda Maria Frank
Publisher: Archway
Rating: warty
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.
This is one of a series featuring the same female protagonist. I've read none of the others, having gone into this without realizing it was a sequel. That there were other outings was made annoyingly obvious to me every few pages, unfortunately, but with a few exceptions, it was possible to read this without having to know details from previous volumes.
There's a seven page prologue - which bizarrely takes place after chapter one!!! I skipped this as usual. Prologues either need to be chapter one, or they need to be eliminated completely. Other than that, the novel started out really well. It was too long with a bit too much detail, but other than that and the prologue, the author evidently knows how to get a story off to a great start. The one real downer for me was first person PoV again, which I detest, but at least in the early pages it wasn't awful (an issue I had is noted later in this review).
We begin with Anne Tillery arriving in Istanbul, Turkey, to participate in an archaeological dig near Nevşehir, which the author spells as Nevshehir throughout for pronounce-ability. Before the plane lands, she receives a slightly unnerving text message on her cell phone warning her away from the dig. I found this peculiar in light of what we’re told very shortly afterwards: that her cell phone doesn’t work in Turkey; then if it doesn’t work, how can she send and receive texts? This made no sense to me. The fact is that different people have had different results with their cell phones in Turkey - sometimes they work fine, sometimes they work and then stop working, other times they don't work. You can fix the problem by using a Turkish simm card or by using a temporary phone while there, so this isn't a killer, but it can be expensive!
The immediate problem with this (not the Turkish cell phone issues, but the warnings that Annie gets) is that they were completely baseless! Never at any point in the novel that I saw, was this apparent need to keep her away from the dig justified. I got the feeling this was "fake danger" added into the novel merely to try and spice things up, rather than as an organic outcome of the plot. The artificiality of this wasn't appreciated.
Annie is expecting to be picked up by boyfriend Ty Egan, so the first problem on the ground is that someone else tries to pick her up, and not in a flirtatious way - by deceptively pretending to be a driver for the dig. She's really suspicious of this guy, which is just as well, but later, when she receives what’s quite obviously a death threat, she handles the photograph, getting her fingerprints all over it. No one calls the police. I think after a threatening text, an attempt at kidnapping, and a threatening photograph, I’d be dialing whatever the Turkish equivalent of 911 is. Not Annie. Instead she pops on a cocktail dress and goes to a party. This passive attitude goes against the grain of what we’ve been told about her being cautious earlier, and about her having had some experience with danger in her previous adventures. It’s really hard to reconcile the two.
Now, about Annie and Ty's kissing in public places, I don’t know! I've never been to Turkey, but I do know there is a slowly rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism there (as everywhere in those parts, it seems), so personally I’d be wary of kissing in public places, but Annie and Ty apparently think this is fine. Okay. If they say so. What I don’t get about them is that Annie is put up in a hotel where she stays by herself - Ty is nowhere around. I don't see how this works! Are they really so sweet and innocent, this couple who kiss in the streets?
This goes to another problem I had with this novel which is the disconnect between Annie's "circumstantial age", and her overt behavior. Is she thirteen? Sixteen? Eighteen? I don't know from the writing. Circumstantially, judged in general by the story, she appears to be seventeen or eighteen if not older (note: the author says on her website that Annie is 17 in the first novel in the series). Judged by other criteria - her behavior and this chaste relationship, she appears to be really juvenile. Clearly if she's at the young end of the YA spectrum, then this behavior is appropriate. If not, then what's up with that?! It doesn't matter what her age is if it's consistent with her behavior (or if there's a good reason given why it isn't), but the real problem here is that this novel seems all over the place in terms of the age group the author is writing for.
Both Annie and Ty tell the other that they love them, although Tyler states it as "I love you little Annie" - way to demean your girlfriend, Ty! But why are they not sharing a room? Again there's an age thing going on here. As I read this I did not know Annie's age nor could I guess it from the writing! It’s not like they're early teens (although they do behave like that), and this made little sense to me given their interactions to that point. It’s like the author wasn't quite sure how old they were, and so neither was I!
At the cocktail party (this is what finally made me believe Annie was older) she meets other members of the archaeological team. Doctor Sasha Borodin is so steely-cut that I became, rightly or wrongly, convinced that she was more of a victim than a villain. Yuseff Sultan was so oily that I couldn't believe his clothes didn't simply slide off him. He had no sense of propriety or boundaries, yet Annie made no attempt to set her own boundaries right up front, which is always a big mistake, and something which suggested that she's a lot younger than 17! Cedric Zeeks was so friendly and cool that he seemed like he had to be the (or a) villain here - if not Ty himself.
Why suspect Ty? Well, he's obvious to begin with(!), but at the party, instead of including Annie in his conversation with the leader of the dig, Doctor Atsut, about the threats she's received so far, he hustled her away to the food table and took Atsut off for a private conversation. This struck me as decidedly odd, especially since Ty made no mention of what was discussed when he returned and sat with Annie at a table. Neither did Annie ask what had transpired. Later this came out, but this lack of curiosity for a character who's being promoted as a mystery-solver struck a sour note for me.
Atsut talked about the dig at Çatalhöyük (Turkish for Fork Mound), which is a Neolithic settlement that existed about 8,000 years ago, and lasted for almost 2,000 years. It was discovered half a century ago. Atsut reveals that there have been thefts from the site, and if the perps aren't apprehended, the Turkish government will be shutting down the dig. This ancient town was weird by our standards because all of the buildings were joined - like a gigantic one-storey apartment block. The homes had only one entrance - in the ceiling! - and no windows. The "streets" were the rooftops of these dwellings! None of this came out in the text which made me wonder why. It's so interesting and odd that I expected at least a mention of it, but we really got no feel for it at all. Instead all we heard about are caves - endless caves!
It takes until the end of chapter six before they finally arrive at the dig, and Ty suddenly takes off running without a word to Annie. When she catches him up he tells her that there has been a cave-in and that everyone must help to dig-out those who are trapped. So my question was: why did he not tell her this before he took off? That made no sense to me, but I took comfort from the fact that the author understands that it’s 'triceps' and not 'tricep'! I've seen that mistake (or it's companion, 'bicep' instead of 'biceps') in way too many novels of late. No wonder US science and math education is doing so poorly!
It's hard to believe that the clean-up of the cave-in would be undertaken by anyone other than trained archaeologists, yet it is. This made no sense to me either! How are a fresh volunteer and a physical plant specialist going to be able to tell if something is important enough that it warrants careful handling and preservation, or is just rubble? That was just wrong!
Annie meets Yelda and Ahmet, Doctor Atsut's two children, who are fraternal twins, but for as young as they are, their English is better than good; it’s actually spectacular, which stretched credibility a little too far for my taste. They play a significant part in the story, but were a bit annoying for me, as was Atsut's poor parenting! This was one of several issues I had, some of which I've mentioned here. Another one was where Annie's dad "pulled out his government-issued revolver". Really? A revolver? I found it hard to believe the US government is issuing revolvers to State Department employees and they're able to travel across borders with them, but maybe they are. It just seemed to lack authenticity to me and after I'd run into so many issues, it became so much harder to swallow other things.
This story, while very engrossing, had too many serious editorial and plotting issues. For example, at one point, Annie, in pursuit of a potential smuggler, heads towards a flash she spots in the distance. She gives herself away by the dust cloud she raises as she walks through the fine sand. Ty and Cedric, only a mile away, suddenly have second thoughts about leaving her alone, so they head back, yet they cannot find her - not even from the trail of dust - which is apparently non-existent now! That was just bad continuity. At one point, Annie is hit on the head and is later cleared by the doctor as having no concussion, but Ty decides he will sleep in her tent - because she has a concussion. Again, poor continuity. And one more: the entire novel is in first person past PoV until Annie gets knocked-out; then suddenly we get a chapter out of the blue in third person. The shrieked.
So, much as Id like to commend this novel for an entertaining story and writing that's not bad at all from a purely technical PoV, there were far too many issues with it to make it an enjoyable read for me. It was like getting on a sled and setting off down a snow-covered hill only to find that there are bare patches of Earth every few yards along the track that keep on bringing the sled to a jarring halt, so in short, I cannot recommend this novel, and I feel no compulsion to read any more in this series.
