Matthew Reilly

Wow what a thrilling ride. I’m so glad I picked this up right after finishing The Four Legendary Kingdoms, because this helped me remember all the juicy tidbits before diving into another Jack West Jr story. This book gave me all the feels that I first felt when I discovered The Seven Ancient Wonders but it was also very emotional and exciting at the same.

The best part of this book is that the author decides to go back to the original formula of telling Jack’s story - a globetrotting show more adventure with a looming deadline. It picks up right after the ending of The Four Legendary Kingdoms and gives no time for Jack to rest before he is off to save the world again. There is a lot of hopping between places - New York to London, Italy to Greece, Venice to Venezuela and many many more. Our favorite crew gets separated into teams to discover the three secret cities, so we don’t see all of them together much. Reilly also manages to device some very new torture methods we haven’t seen before and I just want to tip off my hat to his imagination. We get the usual story of figuring out the locations of the secret cities, finding the immortal weapons, some daring escapes and puzzling through booby trapped avenues while racing against time to perform another ancient sacrificial ritual to save the world.

What makes this book extra special is the emotional pull throughout. We see some beautiful moments between Jack and Lily, Alby, Zoe and even Nobody and the other members of the crew. After this feeling of joy, the author decides that we have been happy enough and we are shocked to our core by the deaths of some key characters and I just couldn’t believe that they happened. It just made the story all the more real and every scene felt like the harbinger of more death. Coming to the action side of it, we have one of the most inventive rescue by a beloved character from Scarecrow and that scene just delighted the Reilly fan in me. As always, the author manages to interweave the story of many myths and legends but I absolutely loved the way he utilized the symbolism of Medusa’s curse and how he turned the legend of the Knights of the Round Table on its head. And that ENDING..... it almost killed me and then gave me just enough hope to hang on to.

This book is a dream for any adrenaline junkie reader and fans of Jack West Jr and I promise, you will be thrilled on every page. And if you haven’t read this series, but love a jet setting adventure, a relentless hero, lots of mythology and the end of the world looming - what are you waiting for... Just go ahead and start this series from the beginning. As for me, it’s going to be a long wait till 2020. show less

China is developing into a superpower to rival the United States in manufacturing and in military might but now it wishes to challenge the US culturally as well. So it has built a super secret zoo in a remote province of the country and has invited VIPs and journalists from the US as well as China to see it before its grand opening. Because this zoo has only one attraction but it is truly unique – real live (albeit not fire-breathing) dragons.

So I know what you’re thinking – Jurassic show more Park with slightly more mythic creatures, right? Well, okay, that’s fair. Even a couple of the characters address the similarity:

“Hamish shrugged. ’It’s all pretty cool and impressive…if you never saw f**king Jurassic Park.’ “

So let’s get this objection out of the way right quick. Author Michael Reilly says that Jurassic Park was his all-time favourite book. He also explains the differences between his and Michael Crichton’s book but, to be honest, they were kind of a stretch – journalists instead of scientists, births from eggs instead of cloning, that sort of thing. But, here’s the thing - so what?

The Great Zoo of China is more homage than rip-off and there are enough differences to make it worth the read. Actually, The Great Zoo is even more fun to read than Jurassic Park – it is more Jurassic Park the movie than Jurassic Park the novel with more action and less ‘science’. The first couple of chapters set up the story: how the dragons were discovered, the differences between the many different dragons, introduces the characters etc. but, once we have the background the story becomes one non-stop action film with lots of things blowing up, burning down, cars and trucks dropping from the sky, and people being killed in some rather icky ways. It’s all guns, gore, and flying death machines with fangs.

Sure, you’re going to have to wear your willing suspension of disbelief like body armour for this book because, *spoiler alert*, a handful of Americans take on the whole Chinese army and a zooful of very intelligent very aggressive dragons and surprise surprise they win. But, hey, they’re very likable Americans especially the lead character, CJ Cameron, writer for National Geographic and expert on alligators who is one feisty woman, her brother, Hamish, and Lucky, the people-liking dragon.

So, yeah, The Great Zoo of China isn’t exactly a unique story and it’s definitely not great literature. What it is, however, is fast, furious, and great fun to read and that was definitely good enough for me. show less

A bit of a hoot! Reilly has no pretentions to being a literary author but he does write thrilling page turners and this is no exception. The story of Hannah Fisher, childhood neighbour of Albert Einstein and a sort of female, super-intelligent Forrest Gump, is a romp through the horrors of Weimar Germany, prohibition New York and the rise and fall of the NAZI party. Hannah is forced by circumstances to give up studying physics and train as a secretary, a career that gives her access to the show more most powerful men of the era - from American industrialists, to top NAZIs and on occasion Einstein himself. Whilst the plot is sometimes ridiculous (twins!) and full of wild coincidences it's a cracking read and, I suspect, will act as a primer in early 20th century history to many younger people who may not have studied this at school. Given the current rise of right wing "strong men" around the world I would call this a timely book. show less

I have been a huge fan of Matthew Reilly for years, so picking up "The Detective" felt both exciting and a little uncertain. Reilly is so well known for his larger-than-life, action-heavy heroes like Jack West Jr. and Shane Schofield (Scarecrow) that I wasn’t convinced that a very different kind of protagonist would appeal to me, and at first, I didn’t think I’d enjoy this novel as much as his others. However, it absolutely won me over!

Sam Speedman was unlike any Reilly hero we’ve show more seen before, and that was the book’s greatest strength. He was not driven by brute force or nonstop explosions, but by intelligence, observation, and an unusual ability to see patterns and connections others miss. He felt authentic and genuinely human, and he was also a total sweetie. One of my favourite aspects of the book was how Sam interacted with other people, he was continually kind, polite, and respectful, even in tense or dangerous situations. That quiet decency made him incredibly likeable and refreshing.

The pacing was classic Matthew Reilly - fast, gripping, and very hard to put down. Once the story got moving, it really didn’t let up. At the same time, the novel dealt with some very dark themes, including slavery and human trafficking, which gave the story real weight and seriousness beneath the thriller elements. These themes were unsettling, but they were handled in a way that underscored the stakes and made Sam’s determination even more compelling.

Overall, "The Detective" felt like a bold shift for Reilly - and a successful one. While it lacked the high octane levels usually found in Reilly’s novels, I think Sam Speedman stood firmly on his own as a memorable and distinctive character with his quiet dignity. I hope this is the start of a new series starring Sam, because I’d happily follow him into many more investigations. show less