The Book of the Dead by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

From the authors' website: An FBI agent, rotting away in a high-security prison for a murder he did not commit...

His brilliant psychotic brother, about to perpetrate a horrific crime...

A young woman with an extraordinary past, on the edge of a violent breakdown...

An ancient tomb with an enigmatic curse, about to be unveiled at a celebrity-studded New York gala...

The New York Museum of Natural History receives their pilfered gem collection back...ground down to dust. Diogenes, the psychotic killer who stole them in Dance of Death, is throwing down the gauntlet to both the city and to his brother, FBI Agent Pendergast, who is currently incarcerated in a maximum security prison.

To quell the PR nightmare of the gem fiasco, the museum decides to reopen the Tomb of Senef. An astounding Egyptian temple, it was a popular museum exhibit until the 1930s, when it was quietly closed. But when the tomb is unsealed in preparation for its gala reopening, the killings--and whispers of an ancient curse--begin again. And the catastrophic opening itself sets the stage for the final battle between the two brothers: an epic clash from which only one will emerge alive.

I just found this audio book on the discount rack at Barnes and Noble and the teaser on the back sounded good so I jumped right in without knowing anything about it. The beginning of the book was kind of confusing - now I know why. When I Googled the book to get an image for this post, I discovered that it is the third one of a trilogy! So I guess at this point I should omit my whining about how it took me a little while to get into the book because it was hard for me to figure out who was who.

The narrator of the audio book did a great job. There were a wide variety of accents to use from the brothers who are from New Orleans to the gritty New York cops. And, one of my audio book pet peeves - men who try to sound like women but just sound hideous...not here! The narrator does a nice job with the women characters - most of the women are really strong, efficient ladies so they play well with his deeper tone but even the "young woman with an extraordinary past, on the edge of a violent breakdown" sounds alright.

So these guys suckered me. I was CERTAIN that I knew who the bad guy was. I was positive I had it figured out. And I was wrong! Once I got into the story, I enjoyed it. Not so much that I am thinking I need to go out and find books one and two but it was interesting and suspenseful and passed the time in the car as I ran errands and traveled for work.

This is one of the books on my list for the Spring Reading Thing 2009. Click on the logo to see the rest of my list.






This is one of my books for the 2009 Audio book Challenge. 8/12 completed on that one - click on the button to see how it's going!