Review of A. J. Hartley’s Tears of the Jaguar…
(A. J. Hartley, Tears of the Jaguar, Thomas and Mercer – Amazon Digital Services, 2012, ASIN B007CJUA84)
My readers probably know I do my “official reviewing” of books with Bookpleasures.com, but that’s often limited to new releases. I’m an avid reader, so I do a lot of casual reading too, some not so new, and I often write reviews for those books. Many of the latter are Amazon reviews (readers can look me up there and find almost all of my reviews, because the Bookpleasures reviews are often reposted to Amazon, at the author’s or publishing company’s discretion). I believe this is the first case where I’ve perused an ebook in my casual reading that deserves to be included in the Stealth Reads section of my webpage “Steve’s Bookshelf,” though.
This book has everything. The plot is reminiscent of Preston and Child’s best, The Relic, only better. The characters are very interesting and well-drawn. The two main settings—the author’s native Lancashire, England, and the Mayan ruins of Mexico—are both steeped in history and exotic mystery. There is action galore; witchcraft and magic; the following of clues, many of them historical; and many misdirects. Some have called this a thriller. I call it a mystery/thriller/suspense tour de force combined with historical fiction that has so much research behind it that I wonder how long it took the author to put it all together.
Anthropology and archaeology were early interests of mine. By the time I finished the seventh grade, I’d not only read all sci-fi books in my hometown public library, I’d also read all the books on those two subjects that were available. I decided not to pursue those careers—they would have probably involved more writing, my first love, than the careers I did choose. After all that reading, I concluded that human beings were just too complicated to study scientifically, so I went into hard science, which seemed a lot easier (of course, every writer of fiction is studying the human condition, albeit not scientifically). Maybe those early childhood interests made this novel resonate with me, but resonate it did.
Museum curator Deborah Miller is conflicted about many things. She feels unprepared to lead a major dig at a Mayan site and has second thoughts about why she was even offered the job. She’s also self-conscious about her size, something she has in common with one of the important historical figures in this novel. She has mother problems—Mom favors her younger sister. She wonders if she’ll ever meet someone and have children. She wonders even if she wants children and whether she’ll be as bad a mother as her own mother. In short, she’s not your usual hero material. But she’s a trooper and steps up when heroic acts are needed, although she makes some unusual mistakes.
The cast of villains is numerous, from those in old Lancashire who hung a coven of witches to modern day ones, from jewel thieves to arms dealers, including one I spotted early on but some readers are likely to miss—pay attention or you’ll be surprised (I wasn’t, but I write this stuff too). I’m not going to give away any spoilers here, but even Miller’s potential romantic interest is a wee bit sketchy. Miller doesn’t have too many real friends, in fact—most of them can be found in the descendants of the Mayas, but there is an old professor in England who really comes through for her.
This entertaining read is a bargain, by the way. You can’t go wrong. There are some glitches here and there (words added or dropped, for example), but I’ve seen this in Preston and Child’s books too. Things get off to a slow start at first, but you still might want to add a seatbelt to your recliner for this one—it really takes off! And brush up on your history—it’s impossible to tell where the historical truth ends and the historical fiction begins. Definitely the best book I’ve read this year!
In elibris libertas….
