It's nice to see that misogyny is still alive and well. And can apparently even get published. Lourds is a fairly reprehensible character. I had no desire to see him triumph in any of his endeavors. And by the end of the book, if they had all died, the only one I would have lamented would have been Gary (who was decidedly less of a character and more of an afterthought tacked on for comic relief). Brokaw's wet-dream written large might have been acceptable if the female characters hadn't actually been worthy of loathing. Of the three (three!) women we meet in this novel, the only one who is remotely likable gets taken out of the story within a span of one or two chapters. And sadly I think the reason she's so likable is that Lourds isn't slavering over her because she is a Wife and a Mother, and therefore immune to his salacious view of women. Oh, and apparently he respects her for her intellect, even though she is a "mere woman."

Leslie was, for some reason, initially represented as being smart and capable, but slowly deteriorates into a brainless harpy as the novel progresses. I think this sentence sums it up pretty well, "Lourds had to smile at the young woman's naivete. For all that she was a 'worldly' television journalist - and probably well traveled in her own right - the world remain a big unimagined place for her. She hadn't seen as much of it as she believed." Okay...so what happened between Chapter 1 and Page 168 (yes it starts that early, earlier actually) where this infuriating line occurs? We meet Natasha, that's what.

Natasha is the antithesis of Leslie. Except she's still willing to sleep with Lourds (why, who knows, because she can and the author wants her to). She's calm and cool and competent and I still don't like her. Mostly because she still thinks Lourds is hot shit, despite the fact that she could do way better, and it would be totally out of character for her to actually sleep with someone while her life is in danger. WTF, you people can't keep it in your pants while you're being hunted down by assassins? Priorities.

I'm actually surprised that there wasn't a knock down, epic catfight that turned into a lesbian sex scene between Leslie and Natasha. Maybe Brokaw is too repressed to actually write anything that interesting. Or maybe he's too intimidated by the lack of penis that would be involved in that particular scenario.

Okay, now that I'm done ranting about the bad stuff, I'll move on to telling you what little I actually liked about the novel.

Um......
The Catholic Church conspiracy was okay. I honestly I think Brokaw could have come up with another well funded group interested in the lost city of Atlantis. I will admit that the mythology created to explain what was in Atlantis was extremely interesting and why the hell didn't you focus your novel on that you big jerk!. Honestly Father Sebastien's side of the story was much more enjoyable and interesting, he could have taken Lourds out of this novel altogether, skipped the globe- and bed-hopping, and conjured up some more realistic female characters.

I also hope that Lourds was not actually based on Brokaw, because if he is I'm sure he has tenure and I'm sure he gives his female students lesser grades just because they are women. Dear Brokaw, your book sucked and have you ever even talked to a woman since the 1950's?


The reviewer is a 2009 graduate of Kent State University's Master of Library and Information Sciences program, an alumna of Antioch College, and the author of the blog A Librarian's Life in Books.