The Alexander Cipher by Will Adams
When workers building a new hotel in Alexandria uncover an old tomb inscribed with a Macedonian name, the archaeological community believes, at first, that they have found a Ptolemaic era tomb. But when the Dragoumis family - a family with strong ties to Macedonian separatism - learns of the dig, they are convinced this tomb contains clues that will lead to the discovery of Alexander the Great’s tomb.
Having enraged his boss Hassan, a very powerful and dangerous man, disgraced archaeologist Daniel Knox is running for his life. With no way to leave the country, Daniel hides out with his friend Augustine, who has been called in to help excavate the tomb beneath the hotel. But the archaeological community is a small one, and Daniel’s past - not to mention the men Hassan has sent to kill him - combine for a deadly race to prevent the tomb of Alexander from falling into the wrong hands.
Considering this book was about finding the tomb of Alexander, I thought not enough time was spent on characters following the actual trail of clues. There were too many subplots, with the Dragoumis family, Daniel’s past with the Dragoumis family not to mention his past with Gaille's - the site translator's - father, hotel builder Mohammed and his sick daughter, not to Hassan and the men trying to kill Daniel. It was just too much.
I hated the way that Daniel was introduced, with him being indecisive about stepping in to prevent a woman from being raped by Hassan, because it was yet another female character that was put in jeopardy solely for the purpose of adding to the story/pain/motivation of the male character. The book spent almost no time on what she experienced in the aftermath, with quick mentions of her being caught by henchmen but would probably maybe be released. The never let her be a character in her own right. What happens to her next we’ll never know because her victimization was never about her but about Daniel’s reactions to it.
I don’t really know how small the archeological community is, but based on this book I would assume small, because every character who came to work on the Alexandria dig were connected from several past events. It was a little hard to believe.
As Daniel is running from the men Hassan has sent to kill him there is a line about how he has no time to go back to his hotel to get his belongings including a passport but a few pages later, without a break in his headlong drive to escape, Daniel suddenly has his passport to hand over at a checkpoint station.
For a main character, I actually think Daniel had very little to do with the plot. Considering at numerous times during the book he is running for his life, he doesn’t have a lot of time to devote to solving the clues surrounding the location of Alexander’s tomb.
While Daniel being a bisexual main character would have been interesting, for Gaille to assume that just because her father was gay that any man in his presence was his lover is ridiculous.
I won’t spoil anything, but I also thought the end of the book was ridiculous. I guess it was a way to connect all of the separate story lines together, but I didn’t find it a realistic ending.
Grade: F