by Val Davis
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by Val Davis
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by Val Davis
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by Val Davis
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by Susan Slater
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Nicolette Scott is an archaeologist with an unusual expertise: she tracks down old airplanes, a specialty that's landed her a new job at the Smithsonian and made her just the right person to take part in a privately financed expedition to unearth a rare Japanese plane shot down in Alaska during World War II. That the financing comes from a pharmaceutical company doesn't seem particularly strange to Scott--her only concern is whether she got the job due to the influence of her father, an archaeologist who's not interested in any ruins less than a thousand years old. In Nicolette's fourth adventure (after Track of the Scorpion, Wake of the Hornet,and Flight of the Serpent), the first part of the expedition goes smoothly, despite warnings from a shaman-like Alaskan park guide that the spirits of the dead don't want the pristine wilderness of the Hammersmith Bear Sanctuary disturbed. And neither, it turns out, do the bears themselves, whose attack on Scott and her party reveals the real agenda of the benefactors who've funded the "dig." They want the remains of gold prospectors who died near the site of the plane crash of a now-extinct strain of influenza, the Spanish Lady of the title. It's an implausible setup, which might have worked in the hands of a writer more skilled at explication of her characters. But the Alaskan landscaped is nicely realized, and the flashbacks to New York at the outset of the flu epidemic of 1917, which killed millions of people, manage to add some flesh to an otherwise thin story. --Jane Adams
From Publishers Weekly
The mad scientist/millionaire/megalomaniac conspiracy formula gets a thorough rehash in Davis's latest Nicolette Scott mystery, following Wake of the Hornet (2000). Archaeologist Scott joins an expedition to Alaska to find a valuable Japanese plane downed during WWII. Backing for the project comes from a "philanthropic" pharmaceutical company, whose real motive is to locate the frozen bodies of a group of gold miners who died from the Spanish influenza that killed millions worldwide in 1918-1919; their camp is near the plane wreck site. The plan is to extract the flu virus from the 80-year-old corpses, reintroduce the disease, then make a fortune with an antidote. Davis alternates this paranoid plot with the tale of the miners, who were infected in New York City and died in Alaska. Her research and recreation of 1918 Manhattan provide some depth to an otherwise flat story. The contemporary characters are cardboard creations with their hearts on their sleeves. The action involves countless treks along snow-covered escarpments by a number of unlikely hikers. The most interesting characters--and most realistic threats--are a female grizzly and her two cubs, searching for food before going into hibernation. The plot devices--getting Scott to the locale of the airplane crash and then putting her in peril--are clunky enough, but the idea that a venal drug company would go to such ridiculous lengths asks too much of the reader.
See all Editorial Reviews
Nicolette Scott is an archaeologist with an unusual expertise: she tracks down old airplanes, a specialty that's landed her a new job at the Smithsonian and made her just the right person to take part in a privately financed expedition to unearth a rare Japanese plane shot down in Alaska during World War II. That the financing comes from a pharmaceutical company doesn't seem particularly strange to Scott--her only concern is whether she got the job due to the influence of her father, an archaeologist who's not interested in any ruins less than a thousand years old. In Nicolette's fourth adventure (after Track of the Scorpion, Wake of the Hornet,and Flight of the Serpent), the first part of the expedition goes smoothly, despite warnings from a shaman-like Alaskan park guide that the spirits of the dead don't want the pristine wilderness of the Hammersmith Bear Sanctuary disturbed. And neither, it turns out, do the bears themselves, whose attack on Scott and her party reveals the real agenda of the benefactors who've funded the "dig." They want the remains of gold prospectors who died near the site of the plane crash of a now-extinct strain of influenza, the Spanish Lady of the title. It's an implausible setup, which might have worked in the hands of a writer more skilled at explication of her characters. But the Alaskan landscaped is nicely realized, and the flashbacks to New York at the outset of the flu epidemic of 1917, which killed millions of people, manage to add some flesh to an otherwise thin story. --Jane Adams
From Publishers Weekly
The mad scientist/millionaire/megalomaniac conspiracy formula gets a thorough rehash in Davis's latest Nicolette Scott mystery, following Wake of the Hornet (2000). Archaeologist Scott joins an expedition to Alaska to find a valuable Japanese plane downed during WWII. Backing for the project comes from a "philanthropic" pharmaceutical company, whose real motive is to locate the frozen bodies of a group of gold miners who died from the Spanish influenza that killed millions worldwide in 1918-1919; their camp is near the plane wreck site. The plan is to extract the flu virus from the 80-year-old corpses, reintroduce the disease, then make a fortune with an antidote. Davis alternates this paranoid plot with the tale of the miners, who were infected in New York City and died in Alaska. Her research and recreation of 1918 Manhattan provide some depth to an otherwise flat story. The contemporary characters are cardboard creations with their hearts on their sleeves. The action involves countless treks along snow-covered escarpments by a number of unlikely hikers. The most interesting characters--and most realistic threats--are a female grizzly and her two cubs, searching for food before going into hibernation. The plot devices--getting Scott to the locale of the airplane crash and then putting her in peril--are clunky enough, but the idea that a venal drug company would go to such ridiculous lengths asks too much of the reader.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
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