Reviews

The Third Gate by Lincoln Child

burritapal_1's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

<spoiler >
it was about this treasure hunter 

" . . . H. Porter Stone, Without a doubt the most famous - and by far the richest - treasure hunter in the world. though 'treasure hunter' was probably unfair, Logan decided: Stone had been trained as an archaeologist and had taught the subject at UCLA before his discovery of two ships from the Spanish plate fleet, sunk in 1648 in international waters. Those vessels - stuffed with silver, gold, and gemstones, on their way back to Spain from the colonies- instantly made Stone not only extremely wealthy but notorious."

who thinks he found the tomb of some pharaoh in Egypt. So he mounts this huge operation and it turns out that the pharaoh's wife had sabotaged his plans and she had had herself buried in that tomb. somebody was sabotaging the whole operation, the head archaeologist. So he did everything he could to stifle the plans of the treasure hunter. And in the end he caused the whole tent city to catch on fire and so almost all the treasure was lost. But I'm pretty sure that he will continue that in the next series because all of that treasure fell to the bottom of that swamp. 

I like the part of the end where the tunnel from the Tent City down to the tomb has started falling in, and the whole of the swamp is breaking in. This guy who was a machine specialist named Frank Kowanski had slipped and fallen and become entangled in the floating cabling that hung everywhere. So he thinks he knows the way to get up to the top but he becomes confused and what he thinks is the surface is actually the bottom of the swamp and this is how he dies: 

" he grasped the metal spar, pulled himself upward, until it was touching his chest. His movements were still slow, like a fly caught in gelatin, and his eyes were blind - but it didn't matter. He was on the surface now. He had to be. He opened his mouth.... and in an instant it was filled with a mixture of mire, and silt, and particulate matter, and found Decay as old as the oldest tomb. And despite this most revolting of violations, Kowinsky - in extremis, as his last mortal act - breathed it in." 

I got this book, and another one, off the shelves of the Evergreen Public Library when I went in on my weekly visit two weeks ago, and found to my horror that not one of my holds were there. I almost panicked, but I started looking around and I found this book, having read other Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston books before, and found them to be fairly entertaining, and so I checked it out. It did the trick, at least for a couple of days.

ehamlett's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Injury/Injury detail

jaeru33's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.25

stanleys1's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

grubbyfeet's review against another edition

3.0

Good stuff! Moved quickly and had some cool ideas in it.

cpriley401's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

angrycroak555's review against another edition

mysterious medium-paced

4.25

emily_reads_a_lot's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

majolo57's review against another edition

adventurous tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

sandygx260's review against another edition

2.0

Fine, everyone likes drama in their read. But twisting around historical facts and misrepresenting actual places to suit the story is a bit—shall we say, dishonest?

Granted, Child admitted he performed plenty of embellishment and fact-warping, but why do this? When I read about the Sudd, a place that is definitely the book's main character, I was like "wow, this place is a hellhole—I need to look it up!" Guess what? It's not a hellhole, not in the least. To me, as a writer, why not create a hellhole swamp, give it a name, and go from there? Writers make up fictional cities, towns, countries— why not a fictional swamp?

Guess Child doesn't think a reader will research what he's writing about during the read. Something like that makes me also mistrust the scientific research.

I believe I have the same quibble about this book that I had in the first Child book I read. Fine, everyone does stupid things, but when a character in Child's world embraces stupid, they are laughable.

I might try a third book, because I do like Logan's character, but now I'll doubt every fact I read.