Customer Reviews

The Lost Throne (Thorndike Thrillers)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Looking for a beach or plane read? Like adventure? The Lost Throne fits the bill. A wealthy amateur archaeologist, who entered Russia illegally, is killed, execution style, in St. Petersberg, Russia. His beautiful but brainy assistant, Allison, calls on Jon Payne and DJ Jones, intrepid ex-MANIACS (special ops guys), to rescue her. At the same time, seven Greek Orthodox monks are beheaded in an all but inaccessible monastery.

Will these two threads merge? You bet they will. Payne and Jones, with the help of that brilliant babe and a hard drinking fisherman, must outwit a Russian assassin, identify and track down an ancient treasure, fight a dozen die-hard Spartans (really!), and save the lives of all the remaining monks in Greece, all without a lunch break.

The Last Throne is not War and Peace, nor is it meant to be. It's a rapid fire, non stop action tale with more zigs and zags than today's financial charts. So, suspend your sense of reality, buckle your seat belt, and enjoy the crazy ride.

I greatly enjoyed this novel. There are reviews questioning the plausibility of the story, but the true gift of a novelist is the ability to suspend disbelief. Even though I knew that there were portions of this book that were essentially "impossible", the author manages to write the story, use the characters, manipulate the history, in order to make the story enjoyable nonetheless.

The strength of this novel is, without a doubt, the character development. Each character, with very little description from the author, becomes very easily known; the author accomplishes this through conversation, which is key in writing a good story; don't tell it, let the story tell itself. But, for sure, the characters are quickly appreciated for their strengths, weaknesses, demons, quirks...

The story, based upon the very real, very eccentric, very egotistical Heinrich Schliemann and his findings as an amateur archaeologist, is quite enthralling. There are essentially three different stories to be followed; 2 ex-military operatives working with a woman whose associate has been murdered, an Interpol director and the young police officer/liaison in Greece, and a group of, it would appear, still surviving Spartans (some cry "300 rip-off", but I disagree; perhaps more of a cash in on what is now in pop-culture).

The Spartans remain a very guarded secret by the author for the majority of the book, which worked well in building the questions and uncertainties necessary in this type of novel.

The ex-military operatives and the young woman, and the Interpol agent and his Greek cop friend, are the subject of the majority of the novel and you will need to keep your attention on names and places to be sure you keep the 2 groups seperate in your mind but this didn't seem too difficult for me.

Probably my only complaint about this book was the rather abrupt ending. The build up deserved more confrontation, more resolution, in my humble opinion. I would also add that I cannot stand when people compare works like this to Dan Brown's "DaVinci Code"; just because Brown made the genre 'mainstream' doesn't mean every book involving historical mysteries has to be compared to Brown's work (for what its worth, I do like Brown; my favorite by him was "Angels & Demons") so I'm not slamming Brown, I've just grown tired of the comparisons where the genre has existed much longer (sorry for the rant; I shall now step down from my soap-box).

Still, all in all, I think this was one of the better reads I've gotten from Vine in a while. I recommend this book to any who enjoy the genre and can accept that, for a story to be good, sometimes the boundaries of 'believeable' must be pushed just a little.

Enjoy!

Take one part The Librarian, one part The DaVinci Code, and one part National Treasure. Stir in a few dashes of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Season to taste with Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt. Mix well. And the end result is THE LOST THRONE by Chris Kuzneski. THE LOST THRONE is an effortless, entertaining, summer thriller that gets your heart pounding and leaves you wanting more.

I really had a lot of fun reading THE LOST THRONE. This novel is apparently the third in a series featuring Jonathon Payne and D. J. Jones, ex-military special forces, who as private citizens, frequently do freelance work, taking on very dangerous and deadly missions. In THE LOST THRONE, the two best friends must find and recover an ancient treasure, one that could change history as we know it, and stop a mysterious, unknown, lethal opponent from killing again and destroying the treasure.

THE LOST THRONE is a rollicking roller coaster of a page turner. I was immediately captured by the story; I simply could not stop reading this book. Mr. Kuzneski writes with in a simple, easy-breeze style, making THE LOST THRONE a quick, relaxing read. Short, intense chapters make this book easy to pick up and put down whenever you have a spare couple of minutes. In this day and age of over programming and not enough time, I truly appreciate being able to quickly slip into and out of a story. The plot is familiar, but with several creative twists and innovations that keep the story fresh and fun. The characters are all engaging and interesting, if a bit stereotypical - the handsome and intelligent heroes; the brilliant, beautiful damsel in distress; the evil, menacing bad guys; the mysterious, secretive monks; the typical red-shirts.

From the first page to the last, THE LOST THRONE is an exciting adventure, one that can take you away from reality and keep you there for quite a while. A perfect summer, beach, or vacation read that will keep you captivated from beginning to end. I, for one, will be seeking out the other books in this series as soon as possible.

The book was redundant and cliche' with cheeky humor and once again another re-write of "The Da-Vinci Code" formula. How many times is this going to be overused? I read this after reading Neal Stephenson's Anathem...a work of pure genius added to the realm of literature...so my critism may be tarnished by following this up with this pseudo DaVinci code mystery adventure. Kind of like following Shakespeare's Hamlet with a 3rd grade play about Easter.

The Lost Throne follows two seperate story lines, one a rescue operation/treasure hunt beginning in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the other the investigation of the beheading of several monks in a montaintop monestery in Greece. Both eventually come together although it's hardly worth reading the 400 pages it takes to get there.

Neither story line is particularly plausible or even interesting. In the first story two ex-special forces types sneak into Russia to 'rescue' an American woman who witnessed the murder of her employer. There was no explanation as to why she needed rescuing when she could simply have boarded a plane for home. The murder investigation part of the story is even more implausible but explaining why would be too much of a spoiler (not that there is too much to spoil).

Another thing about this book that I found particularly irksome is that the author allows supposedly well trained military and law enforcement personnel refer to firearms as 'guns'. This may sound petty but if these guys are calling their weapons 'guns' they can't possibly be the professionals the author is trying to portray them as.

If you are looking for an exciting testosterone-laden adventure there are plenty of good ones out there but this is not one of them.

The Lost Throne is the author's first hardcover debut, the third in his Payne and Jones thriller series. This was my first book by this author, I had not read the first two books in the series prior to picking up this new installment. The reason I decided to try this one first was due to my previous interest and fascination with the history of Meteora Greece and it's mysterious monasteries.

The story itself, a murder mystery involving eight monks at one of the monasteries of Meteora, is a pretty usual and predictable, yet well written action thriller. Nothing fabulous but quite entertaining. The story details some interesting facts of that area of Greece, and of the monasteries themselves, but not as much as I had hoped. I have read books on Meteora and felt that the author could have thrown in some additional interesting tidbits on the background behind the monks and architecture of this wonderful and magical place. However, Kuzneski does present some good history of the ancient Spartans that gave the story some credibility and I believe made the story much more fascinating.

What I didn't like, was that the book had two stories going simultaneously. Nick Dial, a detective from Interpol is on site in Meteora in charge of the murders, and has assistance from a local cop who is a great character. Their investigation and teamwork scenes were wonderfully written and engaging. The other half of the book has the main characters of Payne and Jones, who have been contacted by friends to investigate a murder in Russia that of course has an eventual link to the crime in Greece, but it took a long time to hook up the two stories in the end. Way too long. For me it was like reading two books at once without much interconnection that flowed together. As for Payne and Jones as characters for this series, I found them tremendously disappointing. Their slapstick antics and not-funny humor was simply ridiculous and really became annoying after awhile. No one talks like that constantly on a regular basis and I found it was a factor that truly ruined the book. While the character of Nick Dial as Interpol detective offered a very serious and complex murder investigation, Payne and Jones presented like Laurel and Hardy and I found the two split scenarios too different to blend well.

As I kept turning the pages, I kept wishing chapter after chapter that the author would just leave Payne and Jones out of the stories and use Nick Dial alone for the series. He's a good detective and good literary character. He has a good personality that is tough as well as sensitive, and has a light sense of humor himself. I wanted to love the book but I must say that the characters of Payne and Jones that the series is based on, may have put me off to read another in the series. All in all as a whole the book is a decent action thriller with historical entities that made it palatable, even if the characters were not to my own liking. I highly recommend readers of this book take some time, and go to one of the main Meteora websites to really take a look at the photos of the village and monasteries so you can actually see for yourself this amazing place. Kuzneski does NOT do the town justice with his descriptions of the soaring razor edge cliffs that the crow's nest monasteries are precariously perched on and didn't really give the reader enough of the history and timeline of the monastic life there.

The Lost Throne follows two seperate story lines, one a rescue operation/treasure hunt beginning in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the other the investigation of the beheading of several monks in a montaintop monestery in Greece.

At times it was difficult to remember the story line of either operation. Also, the author's continual usage of incomplete sentences was annoying to me. The author writes with redundencies--he tells and then he shows.

That the damnsel in distress needing rescuing was weak. She could have rescued herself by buying a plane ticket and flying home. I also found the need of the Spartans to murder all people they encountered just so they could locate a book of questionable importance.

The ending was blah.

I was excited to read this book but found myself hurrying to finish it so I could get onto something else.

Amazon suggested this book to me because I enjoy Dan Brown books. This is definitely NOT a Dan Brown book. I rated it two stars (instead of one or none) because it did pique my curiosity enough to finish the book. However, the story lines were contrived and implausible. For instance - a guy needs a ride and magically another American appears with the ride and can get him in where he needs to go. Another time they are able to figure out what their oppponent is thinking - with no basis for it at all.

I was disappointed overall with the book and would not recommend it to anyone. I actually left it on the airplane because I had no desire to have it in my personal library.

Maybe I wasn't the right kind of person to read this book. Maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind. I'm not sure, but all I can say is, it didn't work. From page one, the author tried to build a sense of ominous dread, the oncoming storm, but it seemed to fall flat. It was overly obvious, like a brick to the head. Yes, I get it, there's dirty work afoot.

Then the characters, do they all have to be handsome & virile? I was a little put off by the handsomeness of the first character, but when it was followed by another, and another... OK. The good guys are pretty. Great. I'm reading a children's novel.

The plot, the settings, they're entertaining, but, here again, I just didn't feel like Mr. Kuzneski was trying very hard or maybe trying too hard. All the people who all know each other, the vast resources available at the drop of a hat, oh, I was in a super-special military unit where I became an unstoppable killing machine too... It just all fealt so forced and artificial.

The book was on the order of the camel club books by David Baldacci. Very exciting, and his sense of humor in various parts of the book was very funny and unexpected. A very good book.