Tara Carpenter's Reviews > Treasure of Khan

Ah, my old friend, Dirk Pitt - sticking his nose where it doesn't belong, foiling criminal masterminds, saving the world, discovering historical treasures - in every book!

I haven't read one of these in five or ten years but I'm not sure why I stopped reading. While completely fantastic and beyond the realm of realistic (not even in the same galaxy) I always love the adventure and history and world wide travel. Each new coincidence and crazy plot point just makes me chuckle - of course Dirk and his family discover three different archaeological finds around the world at the same time, solving one big, historical mystery. Of course Dirk and Al can single-handedly rescue several people from the madman's well-guarded compound. Of course they can trek across the desert for days without food or water and be found by benevolent local people. These things happen in almost every Pitt novel and people (like me) keep reading them because they love it.

For all the unlikely plot points, the characters are romanticized and idealistic and the writing is not terrible. Could be so much worse. No sex in this one, which is unusual, but plenty of violence. They are usually very clean in language for novels of this type as well. This is obviously not getting 4 stars on merit alone, but purely because of my enjoyment (which probably only comes if you read a lot of them).