The Anomaly

I picked this up at Goodwill and it was one of my better finds.

This is going to be a short review, because I can't delve deep into this without giving away spoilers.

Nolan Moore is a Youtube armchair archaeologist. He does a show called The Anomaly Files, which is really more of a conspiracy theory, History Channel-type of thing. He has no formal training in anything archaeological. He's an ex-screenwriter.

He and his team are in the Grand Canyon, searching for a mysterious cavern that was discovered in 1909 and then never properly covered. The odd findings reported put it on Nolan's radar.

Nolan is the POV character and he's very likeable. He's a definitely flawed person, but the good thing is that he's also extraordinarily self-aware.

Then we've got Ken, the jaded British alcoholic who's in charge of the whole thing; Molly, his no-nonsense right hand; Pierre, the young, handsome, a little too perfect cameraman; Feather, a New-Agey liaison from their newest funding source; and Gemma, a web journalist who seems more determined that they fail than succeed.

I don't think it's a spoiler to say they find the cavern. And they get trapped in it. From there, rolls out a quite interesting sequence of events that I haven't seen done before or if I did, I sure don't remember it. I really enjoyed this from start to finish. It is a bit of a slow starter, but it's worth it. The end is just action after action and completely makes up for any slow build.

The second book in the series came out this year and I plan to order it Friday.

If you like Preston & Child stuff, try this out. It's a faster, simpler read, but it's still good. The author is a screenwriter and you can tell, but not in a bad way. This thing just screams "make me a movie."