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Riptide [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Douglas Preston (Author), Lincoln Child (Author), David Birney (Reader)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (96 customer reviews)

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From Publishers Weekly

The authors' first and bestselling thriller, The Relic, hit the lists in part for its clever exploitation of an extraordinary settingAthe American Museum of Natural History. Just so, their fourth novel (after Reliquary) makes sprightly use of Nova Scotia's Oak Island and its notorious Money PitAhere transplanted to offshore Maine as the Water Pit on Ragged Island. The novel opens with a brisk recap of often fatal efforts over the past 200 years to recover a fabled treasureAnow worth $2 billion and including a mysterious relic, St. Michael's SwordAhidden by English pirate Edward Ockham in the Water Pit. The difficulty is that the Pit, nearly 200 feet deep, was designed to flood and to kill through booby traps anyone trying to broach the treasure. Into this nifty setup steps Martin Hatch, returning to Ragged Island 25 years after his brother and father died in the Pit. Hatch is back as part of a massive expedition attempting a high-tech assault on the Pit. Brash melodrama ensues as expedition members suffer various gory accidents and as Hatch realizes that the Sword possesses a quality that may kill the entire expedition. The novel suffers from a diffusion of villainsAthe authors variously demonize the Pit, the Pit's designer, the crazed expedition leader and the SwordAand from workaday prose and assembly-line characters (a computer nerd, a sexy French archeologist, a righteous minister). Machine-gun pacing, startling plot twists and smart use of legend, scientific lore (including cyptanalysis) and the evocative setting carry the day, however, resulting in an exciting boys' adventure tale for adults that's bound to be one of most popular of the summer reads. Film rights optioned by Arnold Kopelson; foreign rights sold in eight countries; simultaneous Time Warner audio. (July) FYI: The mystery of Oak Island and its Money Pit has been detailed in several books (e.g., D'arcy O'Conner's The Money Pit, 1978). The Pit, target over the past two centuries of numerous failed expeditions costing millions of dollars and six lives, is variously rumored to contain Captain Kidd's treasure, Incan gold and even the Holy Grail.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The authors, who hit the big time with The Relic (remember the Paramount movie?), return with a tale of buried treasure. The $2 billion cache, at the bottom of a water pit on Ragged Island, ME, was evidently cursed by the English pirate to whom it belonged?which may be why treasure hunters keep dying in the attempt to recover it. Movie rights have already been optioned by Twentieth Century Fox, and foreign rights have been sold to eight countries.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Customer Reviews

96 Reviews
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 (29)
3 star:
 (9)
2 star:
 (2)
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Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (96 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars NON-STOP EXCITEMENT, July 16 2004
By 
Theresa Welsh "The Seeker" (Ferndale, Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Riptide (Hardcover)
I'm a fan of Preston/Child books, so when I saw this was based on the infamous "Money Pit" on Oak Island off Nova Scotia, I had to read it. In the case of the Money Pit, the mystery has to do with who built the pit (which, as in Riptide, has claimed many lives of would-be treasure hunters) and how it was built, as well as what exactly is hidden in the pit.

In Riptide, the whole mystery is around how the pit was built and why no one has been able to penetrate down to the treasure. We already know WHO build it (the pirate Ockham) and we know he had amassed incredible treasure from his raids. So the whole problem is why the pit defeats everyone. The island's owner, Malin Hatch, gets a visit from a man who has discovered an old book that holds clues in the form of cyphers written in invisible ink. Crack the mysterious code and you'll learn the secret of the pit. This new source is the key to who was its ingenious architect and why for 300 years no one has been able to get the treasure.

Okay, that makes having another attempt make some sense, but I could not understand why the Captain (and his salvage company, Thalassa) would begin the attempt before totally cracking the code. Wouldn't you want to learn everything BEFORE starting on a search that had claimed so many lives from previous seekers? Even if you had millions of dollars to throw at the project?

I liked the characters in this story and, as in the authors' other books, characters come to learn about themselves as the tale unfolds. Events of the past come into focus as Malin Hatch returns to his quaint seaside hometown to find the answers that mean more to him than the treasure. But the lure of gold and untold wealth casts its spell and each character reacts in his own way, some being seduced. The character of the minister Clay adds a dimension to the story, as does the interplay between Hatch and the sexy archeologist Isobel Bonterre.

Lots of people end up dead as diasaster after bone-chilling disaster befall the treasure hunters, and the truth is finally revealed in the last pages of this exciting story.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Money is bad for you, especially in a Money Pit..., July 5 2004
This review is from: Riptide (Mass Market Paperback)
First things first. The Money Pit is a legendary pirate treasure hoard that has been inviting - and claiming lives - a lot of treasure-seekers for years. No one really for real knows whether it is a location of priceless treasures or just a buzz that grew into preposterous legend. Several excavations had been done there but none came up with anything save for a puzzling slab of stone with some inscriptions that meant, for the moment, nothing. And also, the further they dug into the hole, the more perilous it became. This was because the location of the Money Pit was on a beach, where the tide can rise faster than you can say the book title.

With those facts, Riptide cleanly incorporated these problems and puzzles into itself. The result is a hole where the promise of great riches lure, but the outcome is very questionable. Kinda like the stock exchange. On the bad side, the characters seems to me a tad underdeveloped. None of them stands out as memorable. That said, I'm a sucker for adventures, and this sucked me right in and I was happy to go along for the ride.

This was a great book, especially when Michael Crichton's reign in techno-adventure seems to wane. Although there were a few techno-jargons, technophobes need not fear. And the ending is literally explosive. You will discover who and why Sir Christopher Wren is important...

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5.0 out of 5 stars Riviting, July 3 2004
By 
Roy E. Young (Swampscott, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Riptide (Mass Market Paperback)
This book holds the reader's attention with great excitement. The twists that the plot takes from chapter to chapter makes you feel like you are on a fast moving roller coaster and almost breathless with excitement. Right up to the very end you are present with the characters and feel their emotions as they build to the final climax!
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