The Pharaoh Key (Gideon Crew series) by Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author), Lincoln Child
Amy Caudill‘s review
Following the culmination of righting one wrong from his greatest failure in the last book, Return to the Ice Limit, Eli Glinn has summarily shut down Effective Engineering Inc., leaving everyone else, including his long-time second in command and friend Garza, and Gideon Crew, high and dry with no explanation or compensation.
While being forced to clean out his office, Garza discovers a long-running search has completed its function, and decides to take the data with him as he leaves. Determined to get the best of Glinn for his apparent betrayal and get a better payout for their extensive efforts,(Garza;,) and make his last remaining months meaningful, (Gideon;) they team up to uncover the mystery of the Phaistos Disk, a legendary artifact believed to be from the time of the ancient Pharaohs.
Keeping their illicit mission under the radar from Glinn is not exactly easy, and neither is going into an untraveled and “forbidden” area of the desert which is under disputed control of multiple governments. The two protagonists re plagued with troubles almost from the start, and are forced to team with a mysterious woman who claims to be an archeologist, but in reality is much more.
Their journey will take them into a settlement in the middle of nowhere that has been completely isolated from civilization, perhaps going back as far as Moses and the ancient Egyptians dynasties. What secrets does the Phaistos Disk hold, and is the world actually ready for the truth? This last adventure for the action-packed series doesn’t disappoint in terms of danger, intrigue, romance, and mystery.
I thought this book was a fitting conclusion to the Gideon Crew series. Each of the three main characters has some resolution of their own. Eli Glinn, having regained his health and solved his biggest problems, finally takes the time to reflect on his behavior, his feelings for the woman he loved and lost, and the role his own actions played in the reactions of his subordinates/colleagues/friends. Manuel Garza finds a destiny he never would have imagined, but also finds he is content for perhaps the first time. Gideon Crew has seemingly made peace with his life and his pending death, though the authors don’t actually show that event. Does this mean there is a chance there will be another Gideon Crew book in the future?
I award this book five stars and recommend it to not only fans of the writing duo of Preston and Child, but to any fans of adventure stories.