( Format : Audiobook )
"You mean you've never seen Ben Hur?"
For a fairly innocuous, if indestructible, archaeologist who rarely seems to get a chance to dig, Jade Ihara certainly gets herself, and her ex-SEAL companion, Professor, caught up murderous adventures and bizarre cults. This instalment finds her once more travelling the world in search of a relic, this one dating back to the time of Cassius and the Spartacus rebellion. Doesn't sound too intrepid but, along the way, she encounters, amongst other things, kidnap, human trafficking, Voodoo zombies, power crazies, lots of swimming, lots of tears and, of course, gunshots, gunshots everywhere. Lucky that she has Professor to protect her! It was positively exhausting just to read. One brief pause, in Rome, provides a quick glimpse at the marvels of the ancient buildings before she was on the run again.
Again, narrator Jeffrey Kaffer's performance breathes life into the characters as they hurtle from one danger to another, his differing accents for the various nationalities encountered nicely finessed.
Definitely a book for fans of non stop action.
If I were Jade, I'd try to hide away somewhere quiet for the next few years, pottering gently on a little dig somewhere non controversial.