Customer Reviews

The Tomb of Zeus

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

 

 

First Sentence: The big gates were in sight and were standing open.

Laetitia Talbot is an aspiring archaeologist who has come to Crete. There she finds a man she's known before, her host, Theodore Russell who is looking for the Tomb of Zeus and has assigned Laetitla a site for her dig, and his charismatic wife, Phoebe. Laetitia finds Phoebe hanged, doesn't believe it to be a suicide and joins forces with the local police to find the killer.

I really enjoyed this book on many levels. The character isn't flamboyant, such as Kate Greenwood's Phryne Fisher, whom I enjoy, and isn't egotistically irritating, such as Elizabeth Peter's Amelia Peabody. In fact, the book and protagonist reminded me a bit of Mary Stewart's suspense novels in that the protagonist is smart, independent and resourceful. Cleverly provides a very strong sense of place and history, and I learned about both, which I really enjoy from a book. From the prologue to the end, Cleverly does give you all the clues to the solution; but they are subtle and you really have to pay attention to catch them. Both the story and the characters were revealed rather as the layers of an onion; the further you went, the more you learned. I enjoyed each new revelation as it was given and had the occasional "oh, wow" reaction. I'm not a big fan of the amateur sleuth, so I really appreciated that, in the end, it was the police who solve the mystery. There's a little bit of a romance, which adds to the fun. The only slight negative I had was that Cleverly occasionally went off on archaeological tangents that, while fascinating, slowed down the story a bit. Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and hope we'll see more of Laetitia.

Set in the '20s, Laetitia Talbot is a modern Bright Young Thing, with brains, education and a highly respected mentor to recommend her--and her family's money to help her out. She's got the experience to supervise a dig team and lands in Crete where at the Villa Europa, Theodore Russell hopes to equal the great finds made by Sir Arthur Evans at the Palace of Knossos. He hopes to find the Tomb of Zeus and has tapped Letty to lead one of the digs.

But all is not just archaeology at the Villa Europa. Crete has had a bloody history, most recently between the Greeks and the Turks with intercession by the British--events that still affect the current day. And there was the bloody Great War that haunts the past of some. The ancient past as well as the recent past all play a part in a series of events that come to a head with the mysterious death at Villa Europa.

The mystery is slow to build, but there is complexity and twists and red-herrings. The glimpses into the recent past and the more distant past were interesting. Letty is a strange mix of the old and new, with the exuberance of youth and of the new opportunities open to women. It's a bit jarring at times, but brings the period to life.

I enjoyed this novel more than the Joe Sandilands series. Cleverly uses the device of the prologue again and to great effect. As usual, the seeds of the story are sown in the very early chapters (though they may be too subtle for the inattentive reader!) Links are made through time and myth and, at the end of the book, we meet (in other guise) a character who has been there right from the very start. Cleverly always plays fair with the reader and the clues to the primary and the secondary murders are hidden in plain sight - for those with eyes to see - resulting in one satisfying solution.

As well as a first rate mystery, we are treated to a wonderfully evocative setting, intriguing characters and ideas that linger long after the last page.

I enjoy the Joe Sandilands series very much and had high hopes for this one. I find the writing to be not on the same par as the author's other books. Laetitia's character was just a little too disjointed and inconsistent. She is an intelligent modern woman who is bucking the male archeological establishment, but she gushes like a schoolgirl and doesn't seem to ever really take charge of her life. I will read it again in the hopes that I am just being too harsh. I will also buy the next book in the series because Cleverly is a good writer and I believe she will get better next time.

Who wouldn't be fascinated by an archeological and mythic mystery set on the pristinely visual island of Crete? Many perhaps, but I found both the title and the setting intriguing. Sadly, though, I felt the book was a bit lackluster, despite all its promise of historical and actual intrigue. The book rumbles to a slow start, with the actual mystery surrounding the death of Phoebe, mistress of the house in which Miss Laetitia is residing, not coming for many long pages. However, shortly after the suspicious death the main characters are off digging for the Tomb of Zeus. There's a sprinkling of mythology and a tantalizing thread of romance. I also felt the book was a little anachronistic in some respects. There are rather intricate post-mortem examinations and while the book makes a point of revealing Laetitia to be straining against chaperones on the island, she travels to Crete unescorted, it seems. And indeed, there are a number of sexual affairs to be discovered in the book, which is not a problem in and of itself as it usually makes for good reading. However, there was at least one affair that seemed to come out of nowhere as there was no basis for it anywhere in the nvoel preceding its sudden arrival in the last pages of the book. Its as if the idea suddenly came to the author at the end and she stuck it in there without trying to make it cohere, which is, essentially, the books weakness. All its different elements don't come together very well. I like all the individual elements, but their disparity made this book seem a little elementary.

In 1927 wealthy Laetitia Talbot comes to Crete to sponsor a dig. Famous archeologist Theo Russell directs the patron to the Mountain of Juktas to a location he already selected where he believes THE TOMB OF ZEUS is buried. Laetitia takes an instant dislike to the pushy man, but adores his wife Phoebe.

Before going to the village of Kastelli where the team will be based for the dig, Phoebe escorts Laetitia to the ruins of Knosses where her new friend suffers a fainting spell and is brought back to her villa. There are sores all over Phoebe's legs that Laetitia believes come from wearing tight boots. Shortly afterward Phoebe is found dead in her room; an apparent suicide. Laetitia does not believe the woman killed herself, especially when she learns Phoebe was pregnant but not carrying Theo's child. Instead the site patron digs amongst the ruins of lives to uncover the murderous truth.

Readers of historical mysteries and armchair time travelers will thoroughly enjoy this wonderful whodunit. Besides the vivid look at Crete during the golden age of archeology, fans will ponder whether the heroine is wrong as there are few suspects with a motive to kill Phoebe; increasingly suicide seems right yet Laetitia stubbornly believes otherwise based on her short time with the woman. Barbara Cleverly explores the culture of Crete in great depth so that her audience can fully visualize what was back in ancient time and what was in 1927-28; an era used as a setting in modern literature for great female sleuths (Phryne Fisher and Maisie Dobbs) and now amateur sleuth fans have one more.

Harriet Klausner

I've been a fan of Barbara Cleverly since her first book, the Last Kashmiri Rose. I found the prologue a very clever way to begin the novel and was always fascinated how each book's plot and mystery unfolded to always bring us back to that prologue. I enjoyed playing detective along with Joe Sandilands. But that good plot development completely disappeared with The Tomb of Zeus. While the character development and descriptions of time, setting and social interactions were wonderful as always, I have to ask: what in the world did the murder have to do with the prologue and what did either have to do with the Tomb of Zeus??? None of these three elements were tied together. I kept waiting for some archeological find to tie in with the murder and both to tie to the prologue. And the end of the book was the biggest disappointment of all when someone suddenly "knows" where an old body is buried and solves the secondary puzzle. What did that have to do with anything? Sorry Ms. Cleverly - while the story was beautifully atmospheric it didn't hold together as a well-crafted mystery.

Well-to-do Letty Talbot has arrived in Crete to sponsor a dig during the island's golden age of archeology. She is assigned to work under self absorbed, haughty Theodore Russell, who sees himself as rival to the famous but aging Sir Arthur Evans. Russell takes an instant dislike to Letty, this "know-it-all miss," and sends her off on what some see as a fruitless search for the Minoan tomb supposedly built for the Greek God Zeus. In deference to Cretan customs, Letty sets aside wearing trousers and appearing in public without a chaperone. But she does hold her own in the middle of this very masculine world of enmity toward women in her field. She says that she and others like her are "claiming for ourselves some of the freedoms men until now have kept for themselves."

Of greater concern is the sudden death of her new friend, Russell's young wife Phoebe, followed by the near fatal car accident of his son. Letty wonders, was Phoebe's death a murder or suicide? And how deep are the tensions between the Cretans and the archaeologists, and the rivalries of digging teams of many nationalities, each trying to be the first to discover the next Knossos?

The story refers back to the bloody Turk versus Cretan turmoil of 1898, and the severe British intervention which ended 230 years of Turkish rule in Crete. The descriptions of Cretan culture, the Minoan past, and the Palace of Knossos are nice.

A short "Author's Note" introduces the story

Barbara Cleverly takes a break from her usual protagonist/detective Joe Sandilands, in order to focus instead on a heroine: Laetitia "Letty" Talbot, a young wannabe archeologist who arrives on Crete in order to sponsor and oversee her first dig. She finds herself staying in the luxurious but somehow sinister Villa Europa, where the tyrannical Theodore Russell lords over his free-spirited wife Phoebe, his naïve son George (Phoebe's stepson) and all his household staff. Letty takes an instant dislike to him, especially when she discovers that he's selected a dig site for her on Mount Juktas in the hopes that she will find the "Tomb of Zeus". It's obviously a fool's errand, poking fun at the fact that she's a woman, but Letty grits her teeth and bears it.

Yet she can't shake the feeling that something strange going on in the household, a sense of darkness and unhappiness amongst the beauty of the house itself. Finally her intuition is proved correct: Letty finds the body of Phoebe hanging from a beam in her bedroom, apparently the result of suicide. But Letty is not convinced, and having formed a tight bond with Phoebe in the short time they had together, wants to uncover the truth about her death.

Although I enjoyed "The Tomb of Zeus", I have to say that judged against her other novels; it's not her best work. There is not so much one large mystery, but several little ones at work within the story (one involving Letty herself) that are not successfully linked together into a coherent whole - plus there is a lot of attention paid to the archeological dig which - despite its symbolic links to the unfolding mystery - often feels like an unnecessary tangent.

Furthermore, on completing the novel I realized that Letty herself made a rather ineffective heroine. It is her companion and love interest William who has his suspicions concerning Phoebe's condition and goes to the correct suspect in order to gain the truth. It a police detective who discovers a grisly secret within the walls of Villa Europa and its bearing on the family. It is Theodore himself who chooses to divulge certain information about the family to Letty and William, and another character entirely who acts as a key witness in explaining Phoebe's death. Letty is even rather passive at the archeological site, and it is down to several children to find the most promising area to dig. At the close of the book, I realized that Letty, the very protagonist of the book, was an unnecessary character, and that the story could have well been told from William Gunning's point of view.

But despite these oddities, "The Tomb of Zeus" is definitely recommended by me. Throughout the story, Cleverly makes several connections between the contemporary story and ancient mythology, some of which are very clever (and the more you know about Greek mythology, the more enjoyable it is) and she paints a vivid portrait of the island of Crete in the 1920s and its proud people and oft-bloody history. Likewise, she makes excellent use of a mysterious prologue, the meaning of which only becomes clear toward the end of the story. The characters are well-drawn and three-dimensional (even the so-called `villains' of the piece are not entirely condemnable) and altogether it was an enjoyable read which makes me want to hop on the next plane to Crete!

In the category of guilty pleasures, I happily place mysteries set in interesting historical settings. I recently picked up The Tomb of Zeus, the first of Barbara Cleverly's series set in Europe after World War I, featuring Laetitia Talbot, an independent young woman of means with a penchant for archaeology and mysteries. If you enjoy the conventions of the upper class British mystery and archaeological digs, you'll have fun with this one.

For the sake of suspense, Cleverly sometimes holds back information in ways that push credulity a bit, given that some of the key pieces were always in the mind of Laetitia, the narrator who has been sharing her other inner contemplations with us. The technique does, however, keep us turning pages. The interesting window into archaeology circa 1928 makes one glad the site Laetitia is digging up is fictional and no real history is being destroyed, although working a real dig would certainly be more fun if treasures popped up at such a rapid rate.

Cleverly's female sleuth faces many obstacles in her male dominated world, but her own fortune and good education provide her mobility and a degree of power. Her willingness to stand up to men who try to intimidate her makes for satisfying reading.

The setting on the island of Crete is lovely. We see the small villages, craggy mountains, and Minoan ruins in vivid and accurate detail. The traditional way of life is entirely believable, extreme as it may seem to some. Even when I traveled there in the late 1970's the men in Cretan villages expressed wonder at my traveling companion, a single Greek woman in her twenties. They told her that if their daughters traveled from the village without chaperone, they would be disgraced because what besides sinful activities could draw a woman from her home and family? I, as an American, was clearly a lost woman with no chance of redemption, but a Greek woman--they had to try. She was from Thessalonica, a large modern city, working as a teacher and quite independent. She found their concern quaint, but foreign. It would be fun to return to Crete and see how much the twenty-first century has transformed it. I suspect it is entirely different, but I hope the peaches are still as sweet.