Yes, indeedy! It's time to go back in time a bit. The release of Excavation in hardback was too much of an excuse for me not to! We're going back to almost the beginning of Rollins' career as a thriller writer. Excavation was his sophomore novel, but there was no slump here. If anything, Rollins cleaned up his style and his prose from his first, Subterranean. The plot's intricate, with tons of intrigue and excitement, plus the too-strange-to-be-fiction stuff that we've come to love so much from Rollins' later work.
If you're a thriller reader and you aren't reading Rollins, honestly, there's no excuse. His work, in my humble opinion, rivals or even surpasses many of the greats out there (Cussler, Brown, Thor). His impeccable research, his tight plots, his sharp dialogue...they were excellent to start with (as you can see in this earlier gem), but have only continued to improve with his succeeding novels. This one's got it all: history, Incan legends, secret societies, plus thrills galore. If you haven't read it, now's the perfect time!
For those of you not too keen on thrillers, Rollins manages to infuse a certain sensitivity into his writing. Yes, lots of things go "boom", but there is real character development and Rollins has a tendency to write strong women to go head-to-head with the more testosterone-driven in the bunch. He likes to turn things on their ear, taking them away from the thriller stereotypes we've all seen ad nauseum, ad infinitum.
So, if you're already familiar with Excavation, hopefully this trip down memory lane will make you want to pick it up again. If you aren't (or even if you are), you can pick up the newly released hardback version here.
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