The Looters [Mass Market Paperback]

Harold Robbins (Author), Junius Podrug (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 26, 2008

Museum curator Madison Dupre has acquired the golden death mask of Semiramis, an ancient Babylonian queen with an insatiable lust for power and sex.  The three-thousand-year-old mask, legend says, has spawned evil over the millennia. 

Madison is proud to have brought the gorgeous mask to her museum despite rumors that it was looted from an Iraqi museum by the US Army. Then the mask is stolen and Madison, framed for murder, is forced to go on the run.

Stalked by killers, betrayed by people she thought were her friends, she struggles to stay alive in a growing whirlpool of intrigue. Her odyssey of danger takes her to London, Zurich, and Málaga and into the arms of a handsome soldier of fortune who might be able to keep Madison alive long enough to prove her innocence and recover the fabled death mask.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Readers who buy Podrug's latest collaboration with the Robbins estate (following The Betrayers) will expect a Robbins-style erotic thriller. What they will get is dull, predictable and surprisingly tame. Madison Dupre, 34 and single, is out to secure her place in the rarefied world of antiquities by acquiring a $50-million Babylonian death mask for her employer, the Piedmont Museum of Mesopotamian Art. The mask's legendary curse soon kicks in: at its unveiling, an uninvited Iraqi insists that it was among the treasures taken by looters from Baghdad's National Museum of Antiquities following Saddam's downfall. With her job, reputation and even freedom (the FBI thinks she's in on the fraud) on the line, Madison sets out to unmask the looters, which turns out to be a very unsafe undertaking indeed. The incestuous, fiercely competitive antiquities world makes for an intriguing setup, but Podrug's execution is clunky. The action is improbable, the dialogue hackneyed, the sex (a Robbins hallmark) pedestrian and scarce. Status-obsessed Madison is hardly likable. Robbins died in 1997; it may be time to let him rest. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“Robbins’ dialogue is moving . . . his people have the warmth of life.”--The New York Times

“Spellbinding…The Firm meets Mona Lisa in this exciting thriller of murder, greed, and lust as the superrich compete to possess the rarest and most beautiful objects on earth.”--William Martin, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Constitution

“This study of greed, psychology and a genuine crime against civilization grabs the reader from start to finish.  No one who has ever looked in awe at a museum object will ever feel the same again after this inside look at the real world of collectors.”--Walter J. Boyne, New York Times bestselling author of Supersonic Thunder on The Looters

“Robbins's literary legacy remains very much alive, and his thousands of fans should experience a pleasant sense of déjà vu as they race through this latest installment.”--Publishers Weekly on Heat of Passion

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Forge Books; Reprint edition (August 26, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765352346
• ISBN-13: 978-0765352347
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,505,401 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Page Turner, November 10, 2011

By 

Rojogaix (Davie, Florida United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Looters (Mass Market Paperback)

The Looters is both exciting and educational. The buildup of compressed tension in the first half of the book was extraordinary, while the unraveling of the plot was skillful, interesting and well thought out. I found the insight into archeological colleactibles interesting compensation for an educational hiatus. Don't believe those claiming this books is replete with sex and violence. True, there is some violence, but it is the validated threat of violence which helps produce tension. I must have missed the steamy sex scenes, while recalling more reference to sex than participation, and vocalizing a hurrah! for the author's prescient awareness that our choice of sexual partners is neither rational nor predicatable. One of the few books I can recommend witout reservation. Enjoy!

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing work from the Robbins/Podrug combo, November 15, 2009

By 

Bob Chorba "Bobbyc" (Milwaukee, Wisconsin United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Looters (Mass Market Paperback)

Like some of the other reviewers I gave up on Robbins. Then a relative sent me "Blood Royale". I then started reading the other books in the series. This entry had a little too much gratuitous sex and violence for my taste. BUT I have not given up on the authors. Let's see how the "Deceivers" is.

2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of his very best!, November 21, 2007

By 

W. Platt (Mobile, Al.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Looters (Hardcover)

I bought this book for my cousin. He couldn't thank me enough. He said once he started reading it; he couldn't put it down and when he wasn't reading it he was thinking about it. Now I have to read it because he is the best critic I know.