(2006)Tried this book after review on The Eclectic Review. Deborah Miller, an assistant curator at an Atlanta museum stumbles on what appears to be the hunt for a Mask of Atreus and the body of Agamemnon of the ancient Greeks. Turns into a deadly hunt for Adolf Hitler's body and a neo-Nazi who is going to use it to bring back the Third Reich in some form. Pretty good mystery.(PW)Rich with historical and archeological detail, this well-constructed debut from Hartley celebrates the power of legend while delivering an engrossing mystery that skips nimbly between continents and cultures. At the heart of the story is Atlanta museum curator Deborah Miller, who's returning home after a successful exhibit when she receives a cryptic call telling her she needs to go back to the museum. Deborah does so only to find her friend, museum owner Richard Dixon, lying dead amid a cache of possibly priceless artifacts. Why was Richard hiding them? And, most importantly, what item from the stash was worth killing for? At first, Deborah believes the missing item to be a Mycenean death mask, but after exploratory trips to Greece and Russia and multiple attempts on her life, Deborah begins to suspect that the object in question is more powerful than a mere mask. Hartley has created an enduring heroine in Deborah, who's courageous, loyal and smart enough to learn from her mistakes.

I only knew AJ Hartley from his YA fantasy stuff, so decided to try a few other of his books. This is a mystery/thriller that, unfortunately, is a little dated. There were a number of questions that I kept shouting at the main character to ask, but she never listened to me. Her own damn fault, then, when she got into a mess. Probably good she didn't listen to me. I totally missed the swastika on the cover.

Just recently went to a reading of HArtley's and I asked him about the genre hopping he does in his writing. He said that he likes to read all sorts of things, so why not write all sorts? Luckily, he's good enough that he can do that. Other authors get pigeon-holed into one type of book and have a hard time breaking out and still getting published. ( )

I'll just say it straight out. I didn't like this book very much. I did finish it, which is more than I can say for some others I've read that I didn't like. I didn't set out to not like it, but there it is. Now, I happen to have read many reviews in which readers say it's a great book, and if they say so, then that's okay. However, I'm often at odds with many regular book readers as far as liking/not liking a book, and it doesn't bother me at all. I'll tell you why this one didn't particularly strike my fancy after my brief summary of this book.

Deborah Miller is a curator of the Druid Hill Museum in Atlanta, started by her mentor, Richard Dixon. One night, after a fundraiser, Deborah goes home but receives a strange, anonymous phone call that sends her back to the museum, only to find Richard dead. Deborah, of course, calls the police, but does some sleuthing of her own, and finds only a brief clue: Richard has written down the word "Atreus," probably his last act. From there, we have the following: a cop that may not actually be a cop, Richard's visit to a website that reveals he was interested in a golden death mask (possibly of a king of Mycenaea, maybe even Agamemnon), an attack on a dark highway, all of which send Deborah running to Greece to try to find answers. But it gets sort of murky and muddled from there, as the plot takes an abrupt turn, and Deborah finds herself in even more danger than before.

My whole problem is that there's so little substance to this book that it was hard to find any of it the least bit believable and thus the least bit engaging. Then there's the villain, whose dialogue was so campy that I could only laugh rather than be terrified at the "horrific" plot at the root of it all. Don't get me wrong...I do a lot of escape reading where there's way too many coincidences, too many timely deus ex machinas and pretty bad dialogue, but in this one, the evil and nefarious deed was just was a wee bit silly. I don't think I'd recommend this one to a friend; let's put it that way. ( )

I have to say I didn't like this book. Not that it was bad, but I felt misled. I bought it because it was supposed to be a mystery about Ancient Greek archeology and it ended up being about something I didn't have much interest in. (Don't want to spoil it for others.) I understand that they would have ruined the plot twist if they has advertised that on the backcover, but I still didn't like it.