Treasure and The Amber Room

“The Amber Room” by Steve Berry. This sure takes me out of the normal Texas mysteries by Texas authors that I like to read. This is the book of the month for our Mystery Discussion Group. I suppose this is one of the things good about the discussion group – the selection is broader than I normally would read so I experience some new things in my readings. This is the first of five books by this author with another on the way. He has a website at www.steveberry.org. Based on what I read in this book, I think I will read more by this author.

I really have had a lot of trouble writing this. If I were a real writer, I guess I had a writers block. Ha Ha . All I can say is I enjoyed it.

Based on the books I have read in the past, I would say this one comes closest to “The DaVinci Code” than any other I have read. It is a great fictional account with some factual/historical basis. It was fascinating how the author bought so many webs and conflicts into the one book - especially since this is an author outside of his traditional / occupational area of expertize.

One of the interesting ideas introduced was the concept of a club of wealthy collectors of stolen arts. The fact they stole only stolen art for their private collections justified in their minds what they were doing. And the murders committed to keep their private collections private did not seem to bother them.

What was especially interesting were the different relationships. Even our sleuth Atlanta Judge Rachel Cuttler evolved in her relationships. At the beginning of the book, she had a civil relationship with her ex-husband. She meets Christian Knoll and finds him exciting. This is before she realizes who he really is - the killer of her father for one. Her ex-husband joins her and sticks with her through this journey. It is during this journey that she realizes what she had all along.

Of course this ends up as the traditional good wins in the end - but it was not necessarily traditional. The good guy wins, the bad guy loses, abd the treasure is returned to its' rightful owners. I can't wait to see what others in the discussion group thought about the book.