THE BOOK OF THE DEAD (Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child) - January 3/07

Aside from the fact that this is part of a series that I've never read, The Book of the Dead is an entertaining and occasionally thrilling adventure story. The book is at its best when it sticks to all the museum stuff - the Tomb of Senef, etc - but then, as I'm not terribly familiar with a lot of these characters, everything else might've worked better had I read the preceding novels. The end goes on longer than it has any right to (the museum stuff is wrapped up and there's still 50 pages to go!), although the fight atop a volcano was pretty good. *** out of ****