TEMPLE

St. Martin's Paperbacks


Written by Matthew Reilly


Copyright © 1999 by Matthew Reilly
Excerpt from Area 7 copyright 2002 by Matthew Reilly



In Matthew Reilly's Temple, American university linguist Professor William Race is recruited by the U.S. Army and brought to the jungles of Peru to translate a centuries-old manuscript that will lead to an Incan idol made from a meteorite  - whose extra-terrestrial properties are powerful enough to build a doomsday bomb.

With several competing military factions searching for the idol, including the U.S. Navy, a lot of action happens in this book when the doomsday bomb program is stolen from DARPA, the military's research facility. Race is in dire straights as all of the factions aggressively go after his academic talents. The book changes point of view several times as Race translates the manuscript, with the manuscript translation done in first person. When reading from the manuscript, the point of view of the manuscript/book then is from a monk who had traveled to the land of the Incan Empire and then the manuscript talks of the monk's escape from the Spanish conquistadors as well as his quest with the idol.

The fact that there are legendary large mutant-like pumas guarding the idol may throw some people off, but the pumas creates a natural peril in this story - besides the military factions and the native tribe as Race's antagonists - which I liked.

The excerpt for Matthew Reilly's Area 7, a Shane Schofield novel, shows the assassination of a senator and the man responsible for his assination, thus setting things up for what the book really is about - controlling the President of the United States.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.