ISBN: 1-4116-4265-1

The following review was contributed by: Theresa Derwin:  Click Here To Read Theresa's Reviews

12,000 years ago, a human possessing god-like power imprisoned the Gods of ancient Greece in Atlantis. The Gods have been waiting millennia for humanity to gain enough power to find Atlantis and release them from their prison. But only a mortal’s hands can do the job. Danny Ryan, recent widow, bereaved of his wife and daughter is visited by Hermes, (the only god who can escape Atlantis), instructing him to seek out famous archaeologist and Atlantis aficionado Doc Constant on the Greek Isles of Santorini. His mission? To fund an expedition in search of the lost city.

Sounds like a great adventure right? After all, there are shark attacks, zombies, sunken treasure, archetypal villains and love affairs. A job for Indiana Jones himself even? Not quite. We are waiting for our intrepid hero Ryan to turn into an Indy, but instead we get Indy’s rather whiny, self-pitying sidekick. Granted, Doc Constant tells Ryan “Archaeology is not Dirk Pitt or Indiana Jones . . . You will not experience an adventure here”, but the reader hopes for an adventure, or at least a hero worth his salt. Furthermore, although he refers to his grief following the loss of his wife and his guilt at looking at other women, it doesn’t take him five minutes until he’s having a whale of a time on holiday, his dead wife apparently forgotten.

And I know I’m being picky, but Greece stopped using drachma in January 2001 in favour of the Euro, which started to circulate in 2002.

All in all, this is not convincing. The characters, the setting, the story itself, though well researched in terms of archaeology, challenges the suspension of disbelief for even the most imaginative reader. With a writing style that is quite stilted, almost too formal, and attempts to make the characters real with the odd dose of swearing, this novel doesn’t quite work. To make matters worse, this is the first instalment of yet another trilogy, so there is no end to this novel.