Tyrannosaur Canyon [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Douglas Preston (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 8, 2005

A New York Times Bestseller

A moon rock missing for thirty years . . . Buckets of blood-soaked sand found in a New Mexico canyon . . . A scientist ambitious enough to kill . . . A monk who will redeem the world . . . A dark agency with a deadly mission . . . The greatest scientific discovery of all time . . . What fire bolt from the galactic dark shattered the Earth eons ago, and now hides in that remote cleft in the southwest United States known as Tyrannosaur Canyon?

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

About the Author

DOUGLAS PRESTON has worked for the American Museum of Natural History as well as with his frequent collaborator, Lincoln Child. He has authored such bestselling thrillers as Brimstone, The Cabinet of Curiosities, and Relic. His latest solo novel is The Codex.

Amazon.com Exclusive Content

Rex-ommended Reading
You won't need to do any research before reading Douglas Preston's exciting novel Tyrannosaur Canyon, but it's easy to see he did plenty. Check out his list of recommended reading to learn more about the mighty T. Rex and the fascinating world of dinosaurs in general.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

At the start of this improbable thriller from bestseller Preston (The Codex), innocent bystander Tom Broadbent is riding his horse through a New Mexico canyon when he comes upon prospector Stem Weathers, who's just been shot. Before Weather dies, he gives Tom a notebook filled with mysterious numbers, asking him to pass it on to his daughter. Taking this assignment to heart, Tom puts himself and his wife at ever greater, more pointless risk as he tries to deliver the notebook. Soon the Broadbents find themselves the target of the prospector's assassin—a jailbird hired by an evil British paleontologist seeking the perfectly preserved remains of a Tyrannosaurus rex—as well as a rogue government operative who's trying, with a commandeered army squad, to kill almost everyone in the book. Lively yet ridiculous, the narrative loses all plausibility as it becomes clear that the characters do what they do solely in order to keep the plot churning to its conclusion. The recent real-life discovery of a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil containing soft tissue makes this particularly timely.
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.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 615 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press; 1 edition (December 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786281898
• ISBN-13: 978-0786281893
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (145 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,312,627 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Douglas Preston, who worked for several years in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, is the author of the acclaimed nonfiction works Dinosaurs in the Attic and Cities of Gold, and the novel, Jennie. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 106 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An electrifying race against the odds!!!!, August 23, 2005

By 

Colin P. Lindsey (Manchester, NH) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tyrannosaur Canyon (Hardcover)

This new adventure from Douglas Preston, set against the backdrop of the remote American Southwest canyon country, is an enthralling bit of story-telling from a master of the genre. Tyrannosaur Canyon is an odd mix. The story is a little implausible and a bit over the top, but that doesn't detract much from the fact that it is fun and addicitively readable. While it lacks any gritty realism, that's true of most rip-snorting good adventure yarns from Treasure Island on. As with all good adventure novels this one excels in pacing, tension, and accelerating story-line. Frankly, the book grabbed me from the opening page and didn't let go until I had finished. In literary terms this one is a roller-coaster thrill ride at a theme park as opposed to an introspective day of art appreciation at the museum. Gripping and exciting, I believe the book will please most followers of the author and also delight new readers.

In this story we are introduced again to Tom Broadbent (from the Codex) as he stumbles across a dying, gunshot man. Before the man dies, he passes on a dark secret within a notebook of numbers and importunes Broadbent to see the notebook returned to his daughter. This task, difficult because Broadbent does not know who the man is, soon involves great personal peril to both Broadbent and his wife as people begin to try killing them. Lots of people actually. An entire cast of scary bad guys, from crazed ex-cons, soldiers, sociopathic creepy scientists, government agents, and others come crawling out of the woodwork looking to end the Broadbents in various terminally nasty ways, for the notebook itself turns out to be something of a treasure map. The Broadbents find help in some unlikely places and people, and make many improbable escapes as they race to determine what secrets the notebook holds and what to do when the secrets are revealed. This is a lively and fun adventure trip with a writing style that inexorably sucks you from page to page like a verbal riptide. It's tense, action-packed, crammed with scientific research, and really I liked it.

27 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Another great novel from half of the writing duo of "Relic", January 15, 2006

By 

Brian Reaves (Anniston, AL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tyrannosaur Canyon (Hardcover)

What really killed the dinosaurs? Theories have abounded for years, with recent discoveries making for some interesting reading. Douglas Preston (who, with Lincoln Child, has written novels like Relic, Still Life with Crows, and this year's Dance of Death) attempts to promote his own theory in Tyrannosaur Canyon.

Tom Broadbent is out horseback riding one night and hears gunshots. As he investigates, he finds a dying old man clutching a weathered leather notebook. With his dying breath, the old man tells Broadbent to take the notebook and "Give it to Ronnie. She'll know what to do with the treasure," along with an admonition to avoid the police and any other interested parties. Broadbent discovers the notebook contains nothing but a series of numbers. Obviously a code, but what "treasure" was the old man trying to protect? The answer stretches all the way back to one of the Apollo missions years ago, and is a secret many people are willing to kill for.

Preston's previous solo novel, The Codex, was a real treat. The characters were rich and the story detailed, with plot twists galore coming left and right. The story progressed well and seemed to build on each previous page. It was obvious he was having a good time writing it. Tyrannosaur Canyon, on the other hand, seems to fall a little flat in many places. It's obvious he did a ton of research in preparing for this novel. Preston had a theory about the way the dinosaurs died, and he wanted to present it in an interesting way. Unfortunately, it seems he had little more than that theory in mind when he wrote this story.

I can't really give you many plot details without spoiling something for you. The numerous characters are two-dimensional for the most part. For some reason, there never really seems to be a climax to the story-just a lot of scenes of people chasing each other through the whole thing. What serves as the end of the book really feels like it should have been one of the earlier chapters with a lot more plot to go. The most jarring part of the story is the death of a major character and sudden introduction of a new villain when the whole thing is almost over. It's an odd thing when you consider how many consistently good novels he's turned out with Child over the past few years.

While The Codex was a five-star novel, this one would have to rank as half that. It's worth a read just because of the fascinating theories presented here, but we've seen him write better. Hopefully his next book will pick up with the same excitement we found in his first.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It was a'right, March 8, 2008

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Serene (Marina, CA, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tyrannosaur Canyon (Audio CD)

I listened to the unabridged audio edition of this novel. Basically it's a veterinarian who,while riding out in the canyon country hears a gunshot and discovers a murder victim. The wounded man gives him a treasure map to take to his daughter. The hero inexplicably promises to do so.

Later, he lies to the police, hides the map and goes to a monastery to ask a secret-agent turned monk-in-training for help. When his wife is kidnapped by a crazed ex-con, he'll do anything to get her back.

This was an action-packed, if somewhat implausible story. I found the villains to be kind of lame. The evil ex-con who runs a convict dating service, the evil Museum curator, the coldly impassive Asian government agent. All seemed a little over the top. I particularly disliked the ending which seemed trite and hokey. Especially the sappy honoring of the treasure hunter who was nothing more than a thief, and the mousey gal who became a Smithsonian employee. Meh.

3 stars. Could've been better.