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Library | Call Number | Status |
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Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Brokaw, C. | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | Fic Brokaw, C. 2009 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
A thrill-seeking Harvard linguistics professor and an ultrasecret branch of the Catholic Church go head-to-head in a race to uncover the secrets of the lost city of Atlantis. The ruins of the technologically-advanced, eerily-enigmatic ancient civilization promise their discoverer fame, fortune, and power… but hold earth-shattering secrets about the origin of man.
While world-famous linguist and archaeologist, Thomas Lourds, is shooting a film that dramatizes his flamboyant life and scientific achievements, satellites spot impossibly ancient ruins along the Spanish coast. Lourds knows exactly what it means: the Lost Continent of Atlantis has been found. The race is on, and Lourds' challengers will do anything to get there first.
Whoever controls the Lost Continent will control the world.Author Notes
Charles Brokaw is a pseudonym for an author and college educator living in the Midwest. He is fascinated by history, human accomplishment, and technology. He has written several books including The Atlantis Code, The Oracle Code, The Lucifer Code, and The Temple Mount Code.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The novelty of Brokaw's debut, which links the Catholic Church and Atlantis, isn't enough to redeem this religious thriller. Evil forces associated with a Machiavellian cardinal, Stefano Murani, target hunky archeologist Thomas Lourds in the belief that he has stumbled on a valuable artifact in Alexandria, Egypt. Leslie Crane, the requisite good-girl love interest, interviews Lourds for a TV documentary. After Murani's minions butcher the show's producer, Lourds and Crane go on the run. Aided by the bad-girl love interest, police inspector Natashya Safarov, they travel to Moscow, Leipzig and Senegal. Two big revelations-that the artifact may be connected to Atlantis and that the legendary lost continent may be linked to a revisionist version of an Old Testament account-will get few readers' pulses racing, especially since Brokaw relies more on shoot-outs and narrow escapes than plausible archeological details to carry his story along. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Word that the lost continent of Atlantis may have been found sends a professor, a reporter, a cardinal, a Russian police officer and many others sprinting across the globe. At the center of this debut thriller stands Thomas Lourds, a Harvard linguistics professor who knows his ancient artifacts. Thomas speaks as if he's lecturing, but he's enough of a hunk to set two women sniping at each other as they vie for him. In Egypt with TV reporter Leslie Crane, he discovers an ancient bell with an inscription written in a language he can't decipher. During an interview with Leslie, terrorists break onto the set, murder a producer and make off with the bell. It winds up with Stefano Murani, a cardinal at the Vatican desperate to overthrow the Pope. The bell, Stefano believes, is one of five ancient instruments from Atlantis that in concert hold the power to destroy the world. If he controls the instruments, he rules the world. Meanwhile in Russia, someone stalks and kills archeologist Yuliya Hapaev, an acquaintance of Thomas, as she examines an ancient cymbal inscribed with mysterious writing. Her sister Natashya, a tough police inspector with the body of an Amazon and the face of a model, determines to avenge Yuliya's death and teams with Thomas after he arrives in Moscow to read the archeologist's notes about the instrument. Leslie follows, sensing the story of the century when it appears that the instruments come from a dig in Cdiz where archeologists may be about to uncover Atlantis. After several narrow escapes and some nights with both Leslie and Natashya, Thomas arrives in Cdiz to learn the meaning of the artifacts. Like the code in a certain mega-bestseller about the work of an Italian artist, this involves a major revision to one of the Bible's central stories. Despite the lumbering pace, by-the-numbers descriptions and a surfeit of chase scenes, Brokaw holds readers until the last stone is turned. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Thomas Lourds, academia's most accomplished (and ruggedly handsome) linguist, is on location, shooting a documentary, when his fetching BBC producer, Leslie Crane, drops a mystery in his lap: an ancient bell with a seemingly untranslatable inscription. Then a Russian colleague, working on a cymbal with similar markings, turns up dead. Soon the game is on: Lourds, Leslie, and Natashya, a policewoman pledged to avenge her sister's death, chase (and are chased) halfway around the world as they try to discover the importance of the artifacts and their relationship to a recently excavated site that, this time, really promises to be Atlantis. Brokaw gets almost everything right here. Short, gripping chapters move the action from Egypt to Russia to Africa to London, while in Rome, a power-hungry priest, part of a secret religious society, has his own plans for the instruments and the earth-shaking knowledge they represent. Frequent gun battles are buffered by explanations of esoteric knowledge, details of the archaeological dig, and some heated sex. Occasionally, the characterizations are thin (and, near the end, certain actions don't make much sense), but Lourds remains strong throughout: Indiana Jones meets The Da Vinci Code. Look out, Dan Brown, Brokaw can play this game a lot better than most of your imitators.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2009 Booklist
Library Journal Review
This debut novel by an academic and scholar by profession (Brokaw is a pseudonym) introduces brilliant and handsome linguist Thomas Lourds as he begins filming an archaeology series for British television. Lourds is asked to identify a bell, part of a set of ancient musical instruments that bear inscriptions of unknown origin. Knowing that the instruments are the key to the Sacred Texts, power-mad Cardinal Murani of the Vatican's ultrasecret Society of Quirinus aspires to acquire them before Lourds and his team can translate the inscriptions and uncover a secret the Vatican has been guarding, a secret that links the Garden of Eden to the lost continent of Atlantis. VERDICT This novel is great for Da Vinci Code fans and readers who enjoy adventure thrillers that revolve around the search for ancient artifacts. The Atlantis element requires a considerable suspension of disbelief, but readers of this genre should be fully inoculated by now.-Laura A.B. Cifelli, Ft. Myers-Lee Cty. P.L., FL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.