A review by trike
True Raiders: The Untold Story of the 1909 Expedition to Find the Legendary Ark of the Covenant by Brad Ricca
1.0
Perhaps this story is untold because it’s uninteresting. When you have to invoke Jack the Ripper in order to add a bit of spice to your narrative because one of the people tangentially involved with your archeological dig was also tangentially involved with that murder case, perhaps you should look elsewhere for thrilling adventures.
[b:The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon|3398625|The Lost City of Z A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon|David Grann|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320487318l/3398625._SY75_.jpg|3438638] also makes a meal out of not much, but at least there the focus is kept squarely on the area in question without bringing in a bunch of irrelevant side topics. But even there I struggled to maintain interest in that book, semi-reluctantly giving it three stars instead of two simply because it was decently written.
The writing here is so flowery that it borders on purple prose. It almost feels like he was paid by the adjective. In my nonfiction history I don’t want the author to wax poetic about sunsets and other such irrelevancies that have bog-all to do with the tale at hand. (And, frankly, unless you’re going from journals and contemporary weather reports, you have no damn idea what the day looked like in 1909.) The template for this should be the excellent [b:Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night|54900051|Madhouse at the End of the Earth The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night|Julian Sancton|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600097225l/54900051._SY75_.jpg|85668818], where the scene is set deftly with a brief description and then we move on to the meat of the story. Plus, Sancton had several journals kept by the sailors to work from, as well as numerous newspaper articles, so he was able to piece together a story from their day-to-day recordings and contemporary accounts.
There’s not as much of that here, hence all the adjectives and extraneous side stories. Plus, there’s not much payoff. I suppose one could argue that it was the journey rather than the destination which was important, but when you have a meandering road trip where passengers go off to do random things, it’s hard to sustain that argument.
[b:The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon|3398625|The Lost City of Z A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon|David Grann|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320487318l/3398625._SY75_.jpg|3438638] also makes a meal out of not much, but at least there the focus is kept squarely on the area in question without bringing in a bunch of irrelevant side topics. But even there I struggled to maintain interest in that book, semi-reluctantly giving it three stars instead of two simply because it was decently written.
The writing here is so flowery that it borders on purple prose. It almost feels like he was paid by the adjective. In my nonfiction history I don’t want the author to wax poetic about sunsets and other such irrelevancies that have bog-all to do with the tale at hand. (And, frankly, unless you’re going from journals and contemporary weather reports, you have no damn idea what the day looked like in 1909.) The template for this should be the excellent [b:Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night|54900051|Madhouse at the End of the Earth The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night|Julian Sancton|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600097225l/54900051._SY75_.jpg|85668818], where the scene is set deftly with a brief description and then we move on to the meat of the story. Plus, Sancton had several journals kept by the sailors to work from, as well as numerous newspaper articles, so he was able to piece together a story from their day-to-day recordings and contemporary accounts.
There’s not as much of that here, hence all the adjectives and extraneous side stories. Plus, there’s not much payoff. I suppose one could argue that it was the journey rather than the destination which was important, but when you have a meandering road trip where passengers go off to do random things, it’s hard to sustain that argument.