Nine Lords of the Night

This is an archeological thriller. As a lover of Amelia Peabody mysteries, I looked forward to reading it, and I enjoyed it.

I notice a lot of reviewers have compared it to Michael Crichton books, and I sort of see the parallel. I read a whole lot of mysteries and thrillers, and it fits well into the genre of "suspense novel about a profession" like the medical mysteries of Tess Gerritson and Robin Cook. Like most thrillers, it felt to me like I was reading a book that was really written in order to be set to the screen, either a TV series or a movie. Lots and lots of action, and a whole lot of dialogue.

As some reviewers noted, the book has some serious weaknesses. First and foremost for me was the desperate need for editing, show more particularly for punctuation. This was mainly in the dialogue, where there were many commas missing. The non-standard sloppiness of the punctuation was distracting. However, it seemed to get better as it went along.

The story relies heavily on dialogue, as I mentioned before, and unfortunately a lot of that dialogue sounds stilted. I imagine that it takes some practice to write dialogue and I think, again, that the writing style improved later in the book, so I think this author still has a lot of promise and wish he had spent more time doing more drafts of the book before getting it into print.

Now for what I did like. I enjoyed the plot and subplots. I particularly liked the Zapatista subplot. I thought the ending screamed "sequel" but I didn't really dislike it. I liked the characters though the author should try to avoid Gary Stu-ism - I think he tried but one of the characters still seems a little bit Gary Stu to me. I thought the female characters were fairly well-done for a first-time male author in this genre. I really liked the setting(s) and the descriptions of places.

Assuming that the author will continue to polish his style, and either improve on the grammar front or get a very good editor, I would read him again. show less

The author combines academia, archaeology, looters, revolution and corrupt police to create a gripping mystery set in the Chiapas region of Mexico. The disappearance of a female graduate student working on a dig at a Mayan site sets off an involved chain of events. Several story lines move between Harvard and Chiapas and involve graduate students and faculty, a revolutionary called The Professor and some truly evil bad guys. Mayan religion, both historical and present-day, weaves throughout the story. The author does a very good job of describing the jungle and the conditions of the Indians living there after the government's "pacification" program killed so many of them. This is a real page-turner and I couldn't put it down. I show more recommend this to those who like a good mystery. My only reservation is that I wasn't totally satisfied with the ending. But I won't play spoiler and will leave that to other readers to decide. show less

I liked the pacing and descriptive passages of this book. It was a true "hard to put down" novel. There was almost too much going on (I have read somewhere this often is what happens with first novels). However, in spite of all the subplots the author did manage to pull it all together in the last third of the novel. I found the characters to be well-crafted and believable, albeit almost too numerous at times. It might have been broken in to two separate books, and kind of feels like that may have been the intention. There were several important female characters, and I thought they were distinctive and pretty well-done. For a first novel it was quite ambitious, and I liked his style.

The Maya are fascinating and are described in detail, show more although some of their ancient religious practices did creep me out a bit. Academic politics, art collectors, and looters are all connected in this story, and that does make it quite distinctive.

I really enjoyed this book and hope to see another one soon. show less

I'm still working on this book... however I am enjoying it very much. The book is a well written archeology who dunnit gem. The characters and story line are quite believable. Gibson reminds me of Tom Clancy in terms of depth and complexity in writing style. I would love to finish but my life as a Mommy has been getting in the way. I cannot read a book this complex while kids are running amok. What is great though is that every time I walk away it is easy to jump right back into the plot without missing a beat. I will update review when I finish.

Okay- all done!!! What an awesome book. Gibson takes the reader for a ride... The novel was well written, the characters engaging, and the plot was surprising. I highly recommend this novel to show more those who enjoy mystery. What really surprised me is that despite the fact I've put the book down several times the story was vivid enough to stay with me. I never had to reread and picked up with the novel no matter the length of time I was away from it. show less

This book in spite of the lack of solid copy editing, is well-written and compelling. Is that a contradictory statement? Not to me. The punctuation problems have been acknowledged by the author, and other reviewers. The publisher has most of the responsibility for providing an inadequate vetting at best. And, in another post here (Writer-Readers), the author states he has hired an editor to correct these problems.

Now that's out of the way, and I can concentrate on how good the book really is. It is a multilayered archaeological mystery-thriller. There are not too many of those books out there (if any?), particulary a book that has been written by a practicing field archaeologist, with over 20 years of experience. Even the reviewers that show more read with a red pen, admit that the story is compelling, and that the characters are well-rendered. I look forward to the next well-edited edition, and the obvious sequel (the ending is pretty clear on that). Furthermore, I think (like another reviewer says), the editing problems pretty much fade out as the story moves on, and it moves on very quickly! It is a great read and I learned quite a lot about the ancient and modern Mayans. show less

This is a novel unlike any other. I truly "could not put it down". It is a multilayered mystery with subplots within subplots and it is all pulled together at the end. In the classic tradition he leaves clues for the reader to figure the puzzles out, but ultimately I was delightfully surprised by the ending. The author E.C. Gibson, is an archeologist with vast experience in the central american region and brings the prehistoric and modern cultures of the area to life in a compelling read. I rate him better than Tony Hillerman in that regard.

Underneath the inept writing, Gibson has a pretty interesting story about the black market for Mayan artifacts and about the dangers of greed and the hunger for fame. It was interesting enough, in fact, to keep me reading until the end in spite of the writing, which was just not good. Gibson's pretty good at misdirection, and keeping you wondering how the different characters will eventually connect up to each other, but he's not as good at wrapping up the ends of the mystery, and I think he leaves unexplored some of the more interesting points he raises about the political and cultural history of Mexico and Central America, and about the ways in which the Maya and their culture are exploited both intentionally and unintentionally by show more various groups in their orbit.

Unfortunately, Gibson needs a refresher course on commas and the help of a good editor, just for starters. His characters are not especially well-drawn; they're kind of flat, and they all seem to speak with the same voice. Gibson's ear for dialogue is solid tin, and his missteps there are textbook examples of how not to write. The female characters are particularly bizarre - inconsistent, inconsistently conniving, inappropriately horny, fragile but suddenly able to shoot serious automatic weapons and/or throw themselves into the line of fire when it's necessary for the plot. Gibson's also not good at judiciously revealing detail. I think he wants his research to show through, so his Harvard geography is unnecessarily detailed, but then he holds back on coherently explaining Maya mythology and culture, putting most of that exposition in the mouths of drunken and poorly-spoken grad students in the throes of existential crises that don't ring at all true, and the revolution that's going on off to the side while the archaeological intrigue is spinning itself out is never really clear in origin or purpose. It's possible that Gibson deliberately just assumes a greater familiarity with those issues than I have, but if so, it's sort of hard to tell.

The bottom line here is that even though I finished it, I didn't think the book was that good. The stars it gets are for story, not for execution. The mystery's adequately crafted, and keeps you guessing, and while the resolution is ultimately not completely satisfying, it does at least more or less make clear what was really going on, even if the whys are still a little hazy. The writing, though, was a not inconsiderable impediment to the story, and while I'm curious about what Gibson might do in a subsequent novel, his writing would have to improve a great deal to hold my interest a second time, I think. show less