《Temple》

Book Description Deep in the jungles of Peru, the contest of the century is underway. It's a race to locate a legendary Incan idol - one carved out of a strange kind of stone. But a stone which in the present century could be used for a terrifying new purpose. Now rival groups are assembling their teams to hunt the idol down, at any cost. The only clue to the idol's final resting place is to be found in a 400-year-old manuscript - which introduces Professor William Race, a mild-mannered but brilliant young linguist who is unwillingly recruited to interpret the document that could lead to the idol itself. So begins the mission that will lead Race and his companions to a mysterious temple hidden in the foothills of the Andes. There they find a carefully contrived sanctuary seething with menace and unexpected dangers. But it is not until the silence of the temple is breached that Race and his team discover they have broken a golden rule...Some doors are meant to remain unopened. Amazon.com William Race, a mild-mannered professor, is impressed into the U.S. army on a bizarre mission: to retrieve a centuries-old Incan idol revered by a Peruvian Indian tribe. The idol, carved out of a meteorite, is the missing ingredient in a so-called "planet-killer," a weapon long sought not only by the U.S. government, but also by a neo-Nazi group whose scientists, linguists, and anthropologists seem to be one step ahead of the Americans. Only Race can translate the legendary manuscript that holds the key to the idol's location high in the Andes in a temple guarded by huge, man-eating panthers, on a moat seething with equally carnivorous crocodiles. It's a preposterous setup of the Crichton/Cook variety, but Matt Reilly, author of Ice Station, takes it to the max, with plenty of improbable feats of physical strength, an arsenal of weapons that would give Tom Clancy pause, and a breathtaking conclusion. There's also a sneaky little internecine war going on among various branches of the American military just to keep the tension ratcheted up. It's not too long on character development, but it's a fast-paced read, with plenty of cliffhangers (literal as well as metaphorical), lots of firepower, and enough villains for a whole other adventure. 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　--Jane Adams From Publishers Weekly As aggressive as an avalancheAand often with the same graceAReilly's second pulp-fiction adventure hurtles into the Peruvian jungle, where competing factions search for a precious Incan idol, the "Spirit of the People." The U.S. Army leads the pack. Like the others, the army wants the relic because it is made out of thyrium-261, a rare material, found only in meteorites, that can be used to create a fearsome weapon of mass destruction. The idolAa carved snarling jaguar headAis hidden in a stone temple and guarded by a pack of fearsome rapas, huge cats that can tear the best-trained warrior limb from limb. If the rapas aren't enough, 22-foot crocodiles also lurk nearby. The army group is led by unlikely hero William Race, a linguist brought along on the journey to translate the 400-year-old manuscript revealing the location of the idol. Race and the soldiers manage to fight off the rapas and retrieve the precious statuette, only to have a latterday Nazi paramilitary group, the Stormtroopers, crash the scene and take it away. However, the Stormtroopers can't hold the idol for long. U.S. Navy Seals swoop in to grab it, then lose it to a terrorist outfit from Texas. The mad chaseAfought on land, water and in the airAhurtles through ancient ruins, abandoned gold mines and tribal villages. The action, punctuated by regular bursts of superhuman feats and other absurdities, careens along at a breakneck pace. Australian Reilly (Ice Station) has a gift for sustaining momentum that never lets up. His writing may be crude at points, his characters cartoonish and his humor inelegant, but his story delivers all the excitement it promises. (Jan. 19) About Author MATT REILLY was born in 1974 and studied law at the University of New South Wales. At 26, he has written three novels, several screenplays, and has had several magazine articles published. In 1999, he sold the film rights to his first novel, the action-packed sci-fi extravaganza, Contest. He lives in Sydney, Australia. Book Dimension: length: (cm)17.8 　　　 　　　　　 　 　 width:(cm)11.1