The Mask Of Atreus

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 show more getting published. show less

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 show more 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. show less

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.

Accettabile solo per simpatia verso la protagonista, una stangona timida e testarda, intelligente e ingenua, paurosa e avventata.
Il resto è un "pastiche" un po' prolisso di lezioni sull'archeologia micenea, di guide turistiche per Atene e Corinto, di truci complotti neonazisti. La terza stellina l'ho data a fatica.