High Tech and Archeology

Professor Johnson and his graduate student, Abby, are asked by Walter Falcone to come to Peru to investigate legends of an Inca Death Cave. It sounds like a wonderful opportunity and the adventure of a lifetime. They agree and setup their base for a year at the Falcone ranch in Peru.

Walter promised them a team and while the team calls themselves “The Rejects,” the young people are bright, technologically competent, and able to put high tech to good use to find and explore the Death Cave.

I have mixed feeling about this book. The plot is great, the information, first class, and the characters interesting. The problem is that this is a fiction book. The dialog is poor. In the opening chapters, Abby and the Professor call each other by their names in almost every piece of dialog. People just don't talk this way. In addition, the dialog, particularly in the opening chapters is almost all data dump. Luckily this data is interesting or I would have put the book down immediately.

The other problem is that the project team is too good to be true. All the team members are bright. They help each other, and Professor Johnson is everyone's favorite boss. While this isn't totally unrealistic, it sounds a lot like Shangrila to those of us who have managed projects.

I would have given this novel five stars, but the writing so amateurish that I have to go with four. If you are interested in archaeology, you'll enjoy this book. If you want a well written novel, this isn't it.

I reviewed this book for Net Galley.