The Six Sacred Stones

For the uninitiated, Matthew Reilly does not write crime.  He does not write thrillers.  Matthew Reilly writes ACTION.  Think Indiana Jones with a healthy dose of Die Hard and you'll start to get the idea.  Character development just slows down the plot too much.  As always, Reilly is inventive in the locales and situations in which he thrusts his heroes.  Having read most if not all of Reilly's books, I am always impressed by his ability to pack into the written word things I would previously have thought would only work in the visual medium of the movies.  The Sacred Stones is no exception in this.

 

If you want something that examines the human condition, move on.  If you're in the mood for some pure escapism to while away a few hours with flying bullets and narrow escapes, then crack the cover.

Matthew Reilly was born in 1974.  He is of a generation who grew up on a diet of action blockbuster movies.  Reading THE SIX SACRED STONES is like reading a screenplay for one of these movies. The characters careen from one life threatening situation to another at a breakneck speed.  There is an incredibly high body count as West’s friends and foes alike succumb to the danger of this latest quest. They die in all manner of grisly fashions. Fortunately the reader is spared too many details.  

 

Character development isn’t really Reilly’s thing.  Why waste the words when you can have another life-threatening situation from which Jack can extricate himself? The characters all seem to have the same voice; from the learned elderly academic to Jack’s twelve-year-old daughter – they all talk in exactly the same manner.

 

If asked to describe THE SIX SACRED STONES, I would say it is Indiana Jones meets the Da Vinci Code on steroids. A fan of action movies looking for something to keep them entertained over the Christmas holidays will probably love THE SIX SACRED STONES.  For this ageing baby boomer who prefers her plots much more sedate and with distinctive characters, it was all just a little too exhausting.