27 October 2016

Testament (Jack Howard #9)

Action & Adventure

By David Gibbins

Paperback 432 pages
Publisher Headline (18th May 2017)
ASIN B01C652QLC
ISBN-13 978-1472230171

'A brilliantly written thriller that remains in the believable and yet rides the edge of the fantastical, the boundaries of exploration ... and expectation.' Parmenion Books



📕My Review

I've read plenty of these 'action and adventure' type novels and I can only praise David Gibbins for the huge amount of research he must have put into producing this piece of work. Top marks in that respect.

However, I found the plot a bit too 'wordy' and not quite enough action in parts. Maybe that's just me being a little too pernickerty having read authors such as Scott Mariani and Andy McDermott. On a positive note, I particularly enjoyed the inclusion of Bletchley Park during the war years and Alan Turing's cameo. On the whole an enjoyable but overly long read.

I received an Advance Reader Copy. My thanks to David Gibbins, NetGalley and Headline.

Barnsey's Books Rating ⭐⭐⭐ 

📗The Blurb

585 BC 

The ancient world is in meltdown. In desperation the priests of the Temple look to the greatest navigators ever known to save their treasures. On a far distant shore, after a voyage more astonishing than any ever undertaken before, a Phoenician named Hanno flees for his life from a terrifying enemy, the place the prophets called the Chariot of the Gods…

1943

In the darkest days of the Second World War, Allied codebreakers play a game of life and death. For some, the stakes are even higher, a top-secret exchange of deadly materials between the Nazis and the Japanese that must be stopped at all costs. Yet even they know nothing of the ancient artifact hidden on board a ship whose fate they have just sealed…

Present-day

Marine archaeologist Jack Howard and his friend Costas undertake one of the most perilous dives of their lives, hunting for Nazi gold. What they glimpse there, before a cataclysm that nearly destroys them, sets Jack on one of the most extraordinary trails he has ever followed—to a Phoenician shipwreck off England, to a WWII codebreaker with an amazing story to tell, to the ruins of ancient Carthage. He pieces together the truth of one of the greatest ancient voyages of discovery, one whose true purpose he could scarcely have imagined.

David Gibbins' website

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