The Codex

by Douglas Preston

`Greetings from the dead,’ declares Maxwell Broadbent in the videotape he left behind after his mysterious disappearance. A notorious treasure hunter and tomb robber, Broadbent accumulated over half and a billion dollars’ worth of priceless art, gems, and artefacts before vanishing – along with his entire collection – from his mansion in New Mexico.

At first, robbery is suspected, but the truth proves far stranger: As a final challenge to his three sons, Broadbent has buried himself and his treasure somewhere in the world, hidden away like an ancient Egyptian pharaoh. If the sons wish to claim their fabulous inheritance, they must find their father’s carefully concealed tomb.

The race is on, but the three brothers are not the only ones competing for the treasure. With half a billion dollars at stake, as well as an ancient Mayan codex that may hold cure for cancer and other deadly diseases, others soon join the hunt and some of them will stop at nothing to claim the grave goods.

• ISBN10: 0330448633
• ISBN13: 9780330448635
• Publish Date: 3 November 2006 (first published 8 December 2003)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 7 December 2012
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Imprint: Pan Books
• Edition: Unabridged edition
• Format: Paperback (A-Format (178x111 mm))
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

[empressbrooke]

I'm a huge fan of the series of books co-authored by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. I also enjoyed Child's first solo novel, but Preston's The Codex left me wondering if Child is the heart of their writing duo (although Child's Utopia certainly had some plot holes).

In The Codex, Maxwell Broadbent is a multi-millionaire who is dying of cancer. Instead of simply leaving his fortune to his three sons, who were never able to live up to his unreasonably high expectations, he decides to seal himself away in a tomb with all his belongings. He leaves them a message instructing them to come find him if they want to claim their inheritance, sending them on a perilous journey through the jungles of Honduras.

It sounds really intriguing, but the entire book seemed to be one long description of boating and walking through the jungle. It was reminiscent of Child and Preston's Thunderhead, where a group of explorers take a perilous journey through the Southwestern deserts to find ancient ruins, but Thunderhead did a much better job of A) making the journey interesting, and B) devoting a large chunk of the book to what happened once they reached the ruins.

I'd recommend it to Child and Preston fans, just for completeness's sake, but if you've never read them before, I definitely suggest starting with their first novel, Relic, instead. I won't write off Preston's solo novels yet, as I have his Tyrannosaur Canyon sitting on my bookshelf, and I'm hoping it's better than this one.