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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is a must read and one that will keep you thoroughly entertained, September 12, 2008
This review is from: The Map Thief: A Novel (Hardcover)
This is an extremely well written novel by Heather Terrell, a practicing attorney, which is suspenseful, mysterious, and historically accurate. Heather uses a ploy which is artfully arranged into sequences, the chapters, so that they traverse the centuries from 1420, 1498, and 2008. Constantly moving forward in the quest to find a stolen Chinese map Mara Coyne, the heroine, travels the globe as you sit beside her while she unravels the mystery of the world chart. While Mara does this, others many years in the past, journey a route designing the diagram she pursues.
She has been hired to retrieve this ancient priceless artifact recently discovered and then stolen. Her sponsor is a financier who she knew from her past. Mara Coyne owns a company which retrieves ancient documents and returns them to their rightful owners. With a demonstrated ability to be successful in this endeavor, she has staff members among who is an ex-FBI agent. He provides vital information by cell phone which enables her to be one step ahead of her adversaries.
Accurate in the smallest detail, the names of historical figures and their positions in history are woven into this astonishing account of Muslim and Christian history as they were in the Ming Dynasty and beyond. Terrell's research into The Knights Templar and The Order of Christ was extensive. Even the descriptions of the buildings in Tomar, Portugal where these orders were housed and where Mara Coyne explored, were so real, you felt as though you were traipsing up and down the stairways with her.
As history unfolds from the ancient past, the tale weaves itself to the present. Each time you go back to the two separate periods of time of 1420 and 1498, the transition to the present is clearly woven into the fabric of today so the perils facing Mara and her companion Ben are understood.
One of the main things that I liked about this book was the clever use of descriptive language. Where Terrell could have said 'they drove onto a new highway' she chose to say, "They shifted onto a new highway ..." conveying a shift vehicle was being driven by Mara. Other nuances abound throughout the book and are very entertaining.
Deception, intrigue, and treachery at every turn keep the main characters high stepping throughout this adventure. Even the historical references are fraught with these same elements tying together past and present. A surprise ending which catches everyone off guard, including our heroine, is the culmination in this fine book. This is a must read and one that will keep you thoroughly entertained, as you watch the Olympics and want to learn more about China.
Clark Isaacs
Reviewer
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
fascinating thriller, August 2, 2008
This review is from: The Map Thief: A Novel (Hardcover)
Famous conservative kingmaker" Richard Tobias hires art recovery investigator Mara Coyne to find a valuable Chinese map stolen from an archeological dig. This is the type of artifact that Coyne searches for as it is the oldest known map to clearly show the entire globe; dating to the early fifteenth century and the expedition of Admiral Zheng to sail around the world. The priceless artifact was smuggled out of China when an Emperor purged any reference to the expedition. It reappeared when Vasco Da Gama used it as a guide in his search for the western sea passage to India.
In the present many groups willing to use force want the map mostly to suppress the evidence that the Chinese came to the Americas decades before Columbus. Mara and archeologist Ben Coleman struggle to find the map and stay alive; neither task easy to accomplish.
Fictionalizing the historical theories of Gavin Menzies (see 1421 THE YEAR CHINA DISCOVERED THE WORLD and 1434: THE YEAR A MAGNIFICENT CHINESE FLEET SAILED TO ITALY AND IGNITED THE RENAISSANCE), Heather Terrell provides a fascinating thriller. The story line is at its best when the focus is on the fifteenth century among Zheng and Da Gama journeys. The modern day cast fails to hold up next to the real historical cast, making most of the contemporaries feel as unnecessary intruders except for Coyne who is the readers guide to the expeditions of Zheng and Da Gama.
Harriet Klausner
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Was Columbus Late?, December 25, 2008
This review is from: The Map Thief: A Novel (Hardcover)
The Map Thief by Heather Terrell is an intellectual historical suspense novel involving a stolen map that is unearthed on a Chinese Archaeological dig. The story's lead character Mara Coyne, is a professional lawyer and sideline investigator. Her job is to return stolen art and antiquities to their rightful owners, the top art collectors of the world.
Ever since the Da Vinci Code phenomenon, novel after novel have been pumped out with an incredible amount of art and religious history mysteries. I find this theme enjoyable, but lately felt this topic was waning. But just as I was about to taper off myself on this genre, I found The Map Thief. The title stopped me short as I was browsing my favorite mystery bookstore. The art of cartography has always held my interest so I had to buy it on that subject alone.
The story begins with a 15th century Chinese map of the world being unearthed on a dig, and is suspiciously and immediately stolen. Mara, operating out of her home-base office in New York, is contacted by a wealthy collector who wishes to hire her to locate the map and return it. Mara learns that the stolen map is quite an enigma; it is a world map, depicting the entire world long before a time when Europeans were thought to be aware of it. No previously known documentation had ever mentioned that a map of this ilk ever existed from this time period.
Three lives entwined, at different points in time, tell this fascinating story. Mara's part in present day New York and with her travels to China, investigate the crime to determine who could have stolen the map and why. The second aspect of the tale, and the section I found to be the most interesting, is told through the eyes of the man who created this map, a monastic eunuch going by the name of Zhi. Zhi's story of how his family sold him to the monastery only to soon lose his manhood, a sacrifice to benefit their wealth, is a sorrowful tale that is enlightened when he is chosen to accompany a large fleet of ships as the court mapmaker to chronicle the travels and exploration in cartographic form. Lastly, the third interjected segment is told through the eyes of Antonio Coelho, another talented navigator also on a major maritime journey of discovery who accompanies the renowned explorer Vasco da Gama of Lisbon. Da Gama is enlisted to map the foreign seas around Africa as the church invites him as a Knight of the Cross, on a mission to Christianize the heathens of the Dark Continent.
Alternating chapters of this book soon become intriguing and intellectually stimulating. The reader learns about the art and antiquities world, ancient China, the art of mapmaking, and of early explorers from China and Portugal that jockey for position to be the first to find new land beyond the west of their known world; what we know today to be the Americas.
The trio of oscillating stories sail smoothly across a sea of puzzling questions that navigate through uncharted waters to debate just who first found The New World. The author successfully creates a light mystery, while at the same time offering the reader an education and tutored lesson in history, archaeology, and cartography during the Age of Discovery. I truly enjoyed this second Terrell novel and would certainly pick up another. My only small gripe with the book is that I found at times the author's use of language a bit stilted, with a flow that could have been just a tiny bit smoother. A minor flaw that would not deter a reader from a wonderful entertaining read.
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