Martin Caidin’s previous Indiana Jones book wasn’t very good and I said as much in my review of it. This one is at least a bit better but it’s still much weaker than the earliest books in the series.
This one deals with Indy teaming up with a female archeologist (nothing new there) and a Wiccan priestess. They’re hunting treasure (no surprise there) and this ties back to some of the Merlin stuff from earlier books.
In this, Merlin’s sword is one of the MacGuffins. But hey, unlike the last book, at least there are MacGuffins and Indy isn’t pretending to be James Bond fighting a cheap knockoff of S.P.E.C.T.R.E.
The real problem with this, though, is that it’s dreadfully boring for the most part. These books don’t need to be over 300 pages. Frankly, they should be 150-200 page pulp novels. The reason being, the story is full of unnecessary bloat, as if the author is too in love with his own work.
I’m glad that Caidin only wrote two of these books and that this one is the last of them. He doesn’t understand the Indiana Jones franchise, the character and how the plots of these stories should be structured.
I read these books because I love the character and the movie formula so much. This offers nothing in that regard.
Rating: 5/10
Talking Pulp 