- Paperback: 464 pages
- Publisher: Berkley (MM); 1st mmpb edition (Nov 7 2006)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0425212807
- ISBN-13: 978-0425212806
- Product Dimensions: 17 x 10.7 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 227 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #402,519 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
In his latest, Masello lets loose a stable of thriller stereotypes and drives them hastily, but not unskillfully, through a sprawling adventure story complete with shady foreigners, ancient codes and terrible monsters. Sinister Iraqi zillionaire Mohammad Al-Kalli hires Beth Cox, a medieval manuscript expert, to translate and restore his family's thousand-year-old bestiary, a medieval compendium of mythical animals painstakingly copied out by monks, replete with Da Vinci Code–style hidden messages couched in dead languages. As it turns out, the creatures catalogued there—a mix of Jurassic Park–like prehistoric monsters—are all too real and held in Al-Kalli's secret menagerie, which Beth's paleontologist husband has been hired, also by Al-Kalli, to study.. Masello throws into the mix an Elmore Leonardesque lowlife who's trying to blackmail Al-Kalli, a 24-style terrorist plot to immolate Los Angeles, Tom Clancyesque weapons specs ("the Beretta... featured a delayed locking block system, which provided a faster cycle time and exceptional accuracy"), an eerily sleepless infant à la The Ring and a spooky original touch in the 9,000-year-old corpse dredged out of L.A.'s La Brea tar pits. Masello has a difficult time keeping together all these busy, dissonant subplots, but even if they don't mesh, each one is a well-wrought genre turn with colorful characters and punchy writing. The result is a diverting trip that may make you think twice before going back to the zoo. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.4 out of 5 stars (28 customer reviews)
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Good Idea, Poor Execution, Oct 21 2007
By imbubbasmom - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Bestiary (Paperback)
Usually, I read the reviews on Amazon before buying a book. Unfortunately, this time I didn't and I regret it. The prehistoric zoo idea was great, but the author didn't develop it to its potential. Many sub-plots were introduced, but then abandoned without explanation. The author also inserted a supernatural element (possible ghosts), which added nothing to the main plot. And I have one question: what happened to the dog? He appeared, saved one of the main characters from a pack of coyotes, moved in with the family and then disappeared without a word, just like the rest of the subplots.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Another wasted idea, Oct 30 2007
By Joe Atari - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Bestiary (Paperback)
Ah another great idea wasted. He has a mythological menagerie of monsters and the best he can come up with is a boring story about a cliched militia group mixed with a cliched arab millionaire and some cliched Indians.
Oh and add all the characters so predicatable its not worth mentioning, I cant even remember there names "Dashing Scientist wot I stole from Da Vinci Code who stole it from a ton of other novels" (is there a computer program that writes stock characters for these guys out there? I think there must be).
Another major problem is the lack of a point to many setups, I hear all about a tar pit that goes nowhere, a baby that goes nowhere, a book that goes nowhere, a spooky ghost man that goes nowhere, caged monsters that go nowhere!!!! For the love of God man, thats the whole point of the book, and you do nothing with them!
I kept reading and reading waiting for the payoff, forcing myself through all the annoying characters and dialogue, waiting for something to happen, and the more I read the less and less likely that became until the final crappy action scene where I realised I had just been burnt and burnt bad, like 1st degree, put me out of my misery cos I'm going to die anyway, burnt.
Finally, though I suppose its not the authors fault, it was in the horror section, had a horror back cover description of what happens, and has a quote about the author being the best horror writer ever. So . . .
I expected a horror novel!
It sounded like jurasic park but with a cheap (but fun) horror take. Needless to say it wasnt. To be fair though I dont really know how to lable it myself I'd say thriller, but theres no thrills, mystery? Again no mystery. Action? Well you get my drift.
I've often thought there should be a two literary markets, one for writers and one for ideas. Bestiary has a nice idea, now we just need a good writer to come along and do something with it.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Highly Imaginative, Dec 4 2006
By Bruce Critchley - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Bestiary (Paperback)
When I learned that Robert Masello had a new book, I pre-ordered it, and it arrived just in time to be the highlight of an otherwise dull birthday.
I sometimes wonder why Masello is so appealing, especially as he writes in a genre that normally doesn't interest me. The quick response would be to say that his books are a guilty pleasure, but every paragraph seems to contain a surprisingly erudite throw-away fact or observation, or an unexpectedly lucid point of comparison that has no other reason to be in the story, but makes it a richer experience. All that aside, he gives us a fast-paced plot involving widely diverse, well-rounded characters in a variety of painstakingly researched environments, and takes us for a wild ride all over the west side of Los Angeles.
The real stars of this book are the monsters. And they are the coolest monsters. I have never lost my childhood fascination with prehistoric creatures, but with the exception of a rare documentary on the Learning Channel, my knowledge of paleontology hovers at the 5th grade level. Thank you for not doing dinosaurs, by the way - even the kid in me is getting tired of dinosaurs. So I was delighted to be introduced to, and provided with paleontological explanations of fantastic creatures I had always considered to be relegated to mythology - not to mention creatures I had only vaguely heard of. I adored Robertson Davies' novel "The Manticore," but I can assure you that paleontology was the last subject on his mind.
I thought we were in for a sequel to "Vigil" when I saw that Carter and Beth are back, a mysterious baby now making 3, but "Bestiary" stands on its own. A few appearances by Arius, from the previous novel are unexplained here, but hint at pleasures to come.
Mr. Masello appears to have moved to Los Angeles since we last heard from him. His descriptions of living on the west side feel remarkably real, both factually and atmospherically. This is a man who has clearly paid his dues sitting in traffic at Wilshire and the 405.
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