The Medici Dagger

by Cameron West

WALK THE KNIFE'S EDGE BETWEEN EXCITEMENT AND TERROR....
THE MEDICI DAGGER
Hollywood stuntman Reb Barnett lives on the edge to avoid the nightmares of his past -- until an anonymous phone call pulls him from his world of cinematic illusion and sends him to Italy on a desperate quest where danger and violence are chillingly real. Reb seeks Leonard da Vinci's Circles of Truth, a coded fifteenth century map that will lead him to the Medici Dagger,an ingenious but lethal invention -- a weapon so light and indestructible it's worth a fortune to arms manufacturers. To Reb, the dagger is his only link to his father's suspicious death years ago. But breaking the code means matching wits with Leonardo. And staying alive means evading the killer who haunts Reb's dreams.
Cameron West's pulse-pounding debut novel is fueled with intellectual twists and the roller-coaster thrills of the great classic adventure stories.

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Novels, Adventure, Ebooks, Indonesian Literature

320 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Laras · Rating 3 out of 5]

A 'gym' type version of Da Vinci Code which is more of a 'library' type. The quick pace seems to say that the book has movie deal in mind.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stuntman Reb Barnett doesn't like thinking about the past. His parents were killed in a fire while his dad was trying to acquire papers from Da Vinci. Since then, Reb has lived on the edge and had troubles trusting people. He gets a call from someone that is supposed to be dead to help continue his dad's quest and Reb can't help but continue to live dangerously and complete his dad's quest. This takes him to Italy and in to the path of Ginny, who has two of the papers. When people try to kill them, Ginny and Reb run and know they must decode the papers quickly to save their lives.

The plot was interesting. Decoding two circles of truth to find the Medici Dagger, made of a metal light as air. Decoding the circles and finding the dagger was the most enjoyable part of the book. The reason why it needed to be found and kept away from the bad guys was ridiculous. The reason was convoluted. A much simpler reason would have sufficed.

Anything to do with characters in this book was horrible. The mood swings from these people was insane. Ginny goes from crying with joy to slapping Reb in the face with anger. What the hell is that? The characters were annoying and because of their wild mood swings you couldn't take any of them seriously.

[Lizbeth Gabriel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fast paced, well-written, gripping and fun. The reason I did not give it a higher rating are the characters. The female protagonist is hysterical. Yes, women are emotional, but they don't burst into tears, punch people and yell until they turn lobster-red. At least they don't do it without a reason. I understand being upset and scared, but she tears up and yells even when there is no immediate threat. Moments later she smiles. That's a bit extreme.
The male protagonist is a marriage between a control freak and an adrenaline junkie with the emotional maturity of a preteen. At least in his case there is justification for his behaviour. He's got serious issues due to his past.
If you overlook these facts, it's an enjoyable action/ suspense/ mystery little book that will fill nicely a few spare hours.

[Belinda Vlasbaard · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars - English Ebook

Quote: The night of the plane crash I lay on my back in bed, propped up on my elbows. My mother leaned over me, dressed in her light blue cotton robe, scrubbed clean, no makeup. I breathed in the scent of her favorite soap -- apricot from Caswell Massey -- hoping to ease some of my worry. I watched Mom's eyes as she fluffed my pillow. Her eyes are the color of acorns, I thought. The serenity they normally radiated was absent that night. And my sheets were tucked in too tightly. I pried them loose with my toes.

"You did the wash today, huh."

"Nothing like fresh sheets, is there?" Mom said, managing a smile. "Okay, there we go. You can cozy up now."

There was no chance of that happening. I laid my head back and my mother pulled the covers under my chin.

"Is Dad coming up to give me a kiss?"

She sighed. "I don't think so, sweetie. I don't know when he's coming up. He's...you know, he's pretty upset." She covered her mouth with her hand. If she cried I'd have a nightmare for sure.

"But it was an accident," I said. "It wasn't his fault." -

1491: Leonardo looked upon his invention, understood its powers, and knew he must hide it from the men of his age. Thus, a profound treasure was lost for five centuries. Now the race to find it begins.
Hurtling across the Atlantic, a plane goes down -- taking with it a page from the journals of Leonardo da Vinci.

In Georgetown, the home of museum curator Rollo Barnett burns to the ground. Only his young son, Reb, escapes alive.
Are the tragedies connected? Are they merely accidents or acts of murder?

Twenty years later, Hollywood stuntman Reb Barnett, an educated, art-loving, high-risk-addicted daredevil on the run from his nightmares, refuses to believe so. Until a phone call rips him from his world of cinematic illusion, and sends him to Italy on a desperate quest where danger and violence are chillingly real.

Reb seeks da Vinci's Circles of Truth, a
coded fifteenth-century map that reveals the hiding place of the Medici Dagger, a weapon made of an alloy so light and indestructible it is worth a fortune to today's arms manufacturers. To Reb, it is worth even more -- it is his only link to finding the truth about his father's death, and to laying bare the dark demons of his own heart. But finding the Circles of Truth is only the first step.

Breaking their complex code means matching wits with Leonardo himself. And staying alive means keeping one jump ahead of a shadowy adversary: the killer who haunts Reb's dreams.

From the brilliant Tuscan landscape to the lush California coast, The Medici Dagger sweeps readers into an intriguing intellectual puzzle that delivers shattering suspense and fiery romance with the velocity of a 9mm bullet.

Cameron West generates the roller-coaster thrills of the great classic adventure stories -- with the adrenaline rush of walking on a knife's edge between excitement and terror.


Like Indiana Jones in the original Raiders of the Lost Ark, hero Reb Barnett effortlessly moves through this action-packed adventure with wit, sarcasm, skill and luck. The Medici Dagger is a fast, light, yet predictable read.

Five Hundred years ago Leonardo da Vinci crafted an indestructible and super-light alloy and used it to create the Medici Dagger. According to legend, bad guys with such a weapon could do unspeakable things. However, the only way to actually find the dagger is to read Leonardo's long-lost journals and solve the encrypted message within the Circle of Truth.

It is up to our hero Reb, who's day job is a daredevil Hollywood stuntman, to find journals in order to locate the Dagger and thus keep it away from the baddies and save the world from destruction. Reb is the perfect guy for the job. His father was a Leonardo scholar and also the curator of the National Gallery of Art, so Reb has been well schooled in the Great Man from an early age.

But, tragically, Reb's parents both died in a mysterious house fire leaving the soon-to-be-orphaned boy to jump from the family home in a foreshadowing of his stunt-man career.

If a fast-paced mixture of stunts, comedy, hunts for 500-year-old artifacts, international locales, unbelievable set-ups and bad guys with black hats to make certain you know who they are appeals to you, The Medici Dagger may be just the thing for a few hours of adventurous escape!

[Carlos Mock · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Medici Dagger by Cameron West

Hollywood stuntman Rollo Eberhart (Reb) Barnett, Jr. lives on the edge to avoid the nightmares of his past. His parents died in a fire and he was raised by Martha Bell Tucker, his mother's best friend.

An anonymous phone call pulls him from his world of cinematic illusion and sends him to Italy on a desperate quest where danger and violence are chillingly real. He teams with Antonis Ginerva (Ginnie) Ginelli. They seek Leonard da Vinci's Circles of Truth and each one of them has some of Leonardo's notes, and both of them are trying to decipher them to find the Medici Dagger, an ingenious but lethal invention - a weapon so light and indestructible it's worth a fortune to arms manufacturers. To Reb, the dagger is his only link to his father's suspicious death years ago. But breaking the code means matching wits with Leonardo. And staying alive means evading the killer who haunts Reb's dreams.

Narrated from the first-person point-of-view, this is a slow, hard read. The characters are not realistic and are two-dimensional. Names of people come and go and don't get developed. There are switches about who's who, which add to the confusion. I had trouble keeping them apart. The plot is twisted, but not believable.

I didn't enjoy it and would not recommend it.

[Stuart · Rating 2 out of 5]

Where to begin with this book. It is all over the place in what kind of book it wants to be. And it is almost like the author did not do researcher on certain things. History and how the Vatican work maybe should of been at the top of his list. Don't read this if you are looking for anything more then an action movie.

[Erin · Rating 1 out of 5]

A knockoff of almost everything but doesn't hit the mark to be fun. I found the main character to be unlikable and his female costar (it has that disease of this is a screenplay, isn't it?) is just there with no qualities except screaming and being eye candy for him. Action comes at a nice pace and if you're into spy fluff with no substance, this could be the book for you.

[Elitsa Hristova · Rating 1 out of 5]

Приличаше на треторазряден екшън с история изсмукана от пръстите. И Леонардо не можа да го спаси.

[Alli Serencko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was difficult to put down! Action packed with a tiny bit of romance, this history mystery tale was so fun to read. I wanted more.

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

helped get me through a 25+ hour travel day so had to have been somewhat worthwhile

[Tasya · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5/5 stars

I think this book could be an okay book. This book just... tries too hard. It was too rushed, and a lot of things are thrown in all at once. And the characters are just so unlikeable UGH.

Plot. EVERYTHING IS SO RUSHED AND SO MANY THINGS ARE HAPPENING ALL AT ONCE. One moment we're in USA, then Milan, California, then Rome. They're EVERYWHERE. We have the myth of the Medici's Dagger, then we have national security problem, and then the characters got insta-lovey and tries to hard to have sexy time, only it wasn't sexy, it was gross. And I thought the code was unbreakable for 500 years yet they could break it in 4 days.



Plot SO our MC Reb is an orphan (and a stuntman). His parents died in a fire when he was a kid, and they were obsessed with the Medici's Dagger. He's also obsessed with paintings, in particular Guinevra de Benci. So when someone called him saying that he knew something about the dagger, he jumps on a plane and meet him. He gets the code Leonardo left, and he went to Italy to get the other codes. Then he met Antonia, and she got the other codes, which is why the bad guys were after her. They got in a boat-chase and Antonia basically hit Reb after he saved her life and then she cried and then she insisted that she wants to tag along with him in his quest. And then Reb is lusting over her. Antonia, or Ginny (since her middle name is Ginevra.) is also rude, asking personal questions, tried to kissed Reb and when he resisted she cried and hit him (again). And the rest of the story is a mix of Da Vinci's code, romance, and a national security problem thrown in together.

Characters Reb is impulsive. One phone call and he flew across the world? Then he "fell in love" with Ginny. I think the author tried to made Ginny looks though, yet still feminime, but she ended up too emotional and kind of psycopathic. She's rude, keep prancing on Reb's personal past, and yet when asked about her own, she gets defensive. Oh well.

So overall.... It's like a rough, unfinished version of The Da Vinci's Code. It's unrealistic, full of weird metaphors and unecessary emotional moment. And the characters annoyed me. But it does have some of its intriguing moments. But the bad outweighs the good. I didn't even know why I bought this book. But yeah.

[Karlie Nyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the line of the Da Vinci Code, this book tells of how Leonardo invents an amazing and indestructible metal with which he creates the Medici Dagger. He then determines that this metal would be misused by all, or at least by many, and so he hides the dagger, and encodes where the hiding place is located within his notes. However, over time, the notes are lost, and when they are rediscovered, disaster follows closely on the heels of those who discover them. The main character, Reb, has long ties to the notes, and although as a Hollywood stuntman, he seems an unlikely hero for Leonardo, he believes that he is the man that Leonardo chose to discover the dagger again after all this time.

This book is definitely worth reading. It is fast paced, and very descriptive about places and people. While I wanted to vomit whenever the story got mushy, it wasn't overly dependent on the inevitable love story which became woven into the adventure. I definitely recommend this story to people who found Dan Brown's books worthwhile. This book will take far less time to read, but I feel that it's still a fun one.

[Nguyen Phuong · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1491, Leonardo da Vinci invents a new alloy. He shapes it into a blade and places it inside a vise. He slams a mallet on the tip only to see the hammer split apart while the dagger remains whole. Knowing how his benefactors think, Leonardo believes that his creation would be used as a weapon of destruction. He hides his findings with the hope that the future will beget a world filled with peace that can use his alloy for the common good.

Five centuries later internationally recognized da Vinci expert Rollo Barnett decodes the Renaissance Man's enigmatic writing about the dagger. However, he and his wife die in a suspicious-looking fire. Two decades later, Rollo's son Reb learns that a billionaire arms dealer murdered his parents. He obsessively needs to complete his father's work on da Vinci and revenge himself on the killer though he places himself in danger from his parents' killer.

Where he will find himself and the woman he loves and become a hero

[Brad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably more like 2.5, but it definitely had some solid 3 star parts, mostly due to the plot and its twists. The characters were somewhat shallow and underdeveloped, and some of the writing was just plain strange (some of the author's comparisons and some of the main character's dreams), but it was an exciting story.

It feels like a first novel, and probably isn't good enough that I would recommend it to anyone. I picked it up at Salvation Army for 30 cents, and at least I don't feel like it was completely wasted. Probably not one that I'll hold on to. He's lucky that it came out before the DaVinci Code, because he probably would have gotten some criticism for riding coattails. And Brown did a better job, anyway.

Rating: R, for strong language (a dozen f-words, other language), violence, and some sexuality.

[Janet · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can’t give this book zero stars because I did finish it. If you like Dan Brown’s books, you will probably like this book. This was a summer action movie waiting to happen. Personally I am tired of bad guy assassins talking their potential victim to death, just shoot the guy. No assassin worth his/her weight would engage the target in conversation.

The story line did flow even if it was punctuated with action/violence. I mostly liked the main characters even if they were pretty much a stereotype. The macho guy that needs to get in touch with his feelings (give me a break) and the woman who needed rescuing. I do have to admit the woman had a strong character even if she cried a lot and needed rescuing. Bottom line, if you like action books and want a quick read then this book is for you. If you want some substance over mindless action, don’t bother.

[Sridhar Babu · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is everything in this book..kinda formula. There is Davinci,so there is an manuscript,that leads to ancient dagger hidden somewhere.As expected there is insane villain group in search of the manuscript,coz this dagger contains an alloy, which helps in preserving nuclear weapons!!!??? As expected hero comes..ancient manuscript somehow reaches him..followed by hide and seek games, blackmails..braking the riddle formulated by Davinci...Blah...blah...blah...

I felt re reading a novel of "Dan Brown"...there is no suspence and the tempo is very slow, the plots by the villain are childish..like watching a B grade movie.

This fiction is not worth buying...if you get it free as a gift,or from your friends, then ok go ahead!!!

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad. interesting plot, with some good twists. Some were from out of the blue, while others were lead up to well, with foreshadowing and some predictability. Neat ideas for any Leonardo lover, this would be an easy one to believe he actually made the dagger... :) A little odd in the dream sequences, and a couple racy scenes that didn't go anywhere, but were graphic enough to not want me to share it with younger readers. Otherwise, it could have been a good youth fiction novel. But what do you expect when the author is a PhD psychologist? Doesn't everything have to do with desires and dreams?

[Bryan Kornele · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did not seem that great of story. In some places the characters just seemed pasted in and the names seemed like aliases. I did like the puzzle concerning the circles of truth though but it just was not enough. There also was some sentences that just made no sense at all.
“Whoa, a Tony Roma’s onion loaf on my head.” - ?
“I dreamt I was an abacus, or a billiards scorekeeping rack, I don’t know which. Faceless fifteenth-century soldiers, with dirty fingernails, kept sliding my alabaster Life Savers over. It hurt every time, but I had to take it, their grubby mitts, greasy with chicken fat, sliming up my counting stones. I knew I couldn’t ever get clean.” -?

[Larashi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cepet banget ceritanya
Mulai dari masa kecil tokoh utama sampai sejarah dia jadi stuntman hebat
Gara gara penasaran dengan teror yang melenyapkan orang tuanya, dia pun ngotit mau nyari
Harta karun belati medici yang merupakan salah satu peninggalan kuno
Beneran bacaan selintas lalu, tapi ga meninggalkan kesan
Jadi dua bintang aja cukup deh
Satu buat kasian, satu lagi buat sejarahnya xD

[Whitebeard Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story concept here is really great, with solid characters that any reader will like, but the writing seems rushed, details added not so much to aid in the telling but to increase word count. I believe a re-write and a better editing job could produce a world class novel.

[Langit Amaravati · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ini jenis tema yang klise. Ada pencarian yang dilatarbelakangi oleh dendam, ada tokoh jagoan, lalu ada perempuan cantik nan cerdas yang kemudian jatuh cinta kepada tokoh utama. Khas film-film Holywood. Membosankan.

[Nissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

terlalu davinci code

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author seemed more interested in selling an option for a screenplay than writing a book and it seemed a derivative of the da Vinci Code. A movie version probably would be better than the book.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

completely ridiculous - wooden characters in contrived situations.

[Patty · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good suspense novel. I'd recommend it for a quick read.

[Bushra · Rating 4 out of 5]

excellent bk like dan brown's
but too much melodrama made me giv it a 4 instead of 5!

[Devi · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a lite read - kind of a DaVinci code code knock off - but still fun for the beach or the plane.

[Ayu Noorfajarryani · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awalnya bagus..tetapi entah kenapa di tengah-tengah si pengarang seperti lost sehingga banyak yang tidak nyambung. Rasanya mau jadi kayak harlequin di tengah-tengah tetapi malah jadi aneh.

[Hobby · Rating 2 out of 5]

more about this book, check on my review at here :
http://my-mystery-readings.blogspot.c...

[mr. 阿創 · Rating 1 out of 5]

開場兩顆星，到結尾只剩一顆星，每下愈況。作者忝為心理學博士，故事裡最讓我失望的，偏偏就是角色情緒轉移太快，說哭就哭，破涕又笑，活生生的演技大考驗。

下午在圖書館讀這本小說，偏生隔壁桌有對小情侶在那邊情不自禁，當真是書中有動作，書外也有動作，看得我心裡七上八下，直想走過去教育咱們的下一代這個「恥」字要怎麼寫。