Thomas Dunne Books
356 Pages
I have to make a confession, a confession that some people won’t like. I loved The Davinci Code by Dan Brown when it came out. I understood that it was purely entertainment and that while there may have been a thread of truth woven throughout, mostly it was in good fun. Brown, as an artist, took liberties with history to create a possible, even if not likely, scenario to create a thriller. I always look for more books like that to read. When I saw The Lost Temple by Tom Harper on my reading app, I knew I had to read it.
The Lost Temple is an older book, published in 2007. Because of that, there are some dated moments in the language. Despite that, this book is a lot of fun to read. The story opens in 1941 as Greece is being overrun by Nazi soldiers. An archaeologist is reluctant to abandon his dig and is killed in an ensuing fight. Six years later, Sam Grant, a former Special Forces soldier, is dragged back to Greece to help hunt down a treasure hidden behind a cipher that he holds in an old notebook. This treasure could be the greatest in history, and unlock so many secrets from times long lost. Chased by mysterious agents of various countries, Grant enlists the help of a Greek journalist with a bunch of baggage herself. Danger lurks in every shadow.
I really wanted to like this book because I love books like this. Essentially, this novel was a cross between “Indiana Jones” and “Ocean's Eleven.” There was a lot of pomp and circumstance here, but I think Harper missed his chances to deliver a work as good as either of these movies or The Davinci Code. His attempt fell short. Probably his weakest point was his characters. They did not develop and were very wooden in their actions. Some of his peripheral characters are simply stereotypes injected into the story to make the narrative make a bit more sense. The actions of most of the cast are befuddling at many points.
I think Harper has the bones of a great story here. This felt more like a first draft to me than a finished project. If the author went back to the manuscript for this novel, I believe he’d take the time to rewrite it and bring forth all the greatness that is bubbling beneath the surface. I could tell from reading this that he has some incredible talent.
Despite its shortcomings, I still enjoyed reading this book. It left me wanting a lot more. In some passages, I wanted to scream at the characters to have more humanity and better decision making tendencies. I would give this a solid 6 out of 10 overall, and 8 out of 10 for potential. Anyone who reads this book will get through it in a relatively short time. It might be a fun little book to read over the weekend.
While The Lost Temple by Tom Harper did not live up to my expectations, there was enough here to suggest it to others. Maybe you will have the same reaction that I did, and want the author to revisit this book to give it another rewrite with some more fleshing out of character and plot. A little more attention and this could be a great book.
Craig Bacon loves these thriller adventure stories that take a tiny bit of history and turn it into an entertaining tale.