A Book Review: The Sacred Vault by Andy McDermott (Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase #6)

My reading habits go through cycles. At times I feel like reading sci-fi/fantasy books, on occasions I crave for historical and literary fictions, and some nights I just want to loose myself in a nail-biting thriller novel. With the arrival of March, a craving for thrillers came knocking at the gate to my reading world. I trekked to my local library, seeking a good thrill, and Andy McDemott's thrilling tale, The Sacred Vault, waved at me from a bookshelf.

Initially, I was hesitant, unsure if I wanted to read The Sacred Vault. You see, this book belongs to the 6^th installment in a series of thrillers featuring; archeologist Nina Wilde, and her ex-military husband, Eddie Chase. At my mentioning of the word, archeologist, you can likely form an idea for what sort of books are these. This series is what I would call, treasure hunt thrillers. A classical treasure hunt thriller smells and tastes like an Indiana Jones adventure; its story usually involves a race against the baddies to uncover a lost secret from some ancient civilization, its plot is then served up with an overdose of octane-driven, impossible action sequences.

I usually like treasure hunt thrillers. A few years back, I devoured some James Rollins and Dan Brown novels, and this sort of book opened my appetite for this genre. Since then, thrillers has been one of the main courses in my literary diets. But I am just not head over toes for Andy McDermott novels even though I have read 5 of them in the past 2 years. I did end up loaning The Sacred Vault from the library, not only because it was the sole thriller novel available at that time, but also because I wanted to give this series another go. Unfortunately, The Sacred Vault could not change my opinion about this series.

Don't get me wrong, The Sacred Vault is indeed, a fast-paced action romp that comes packed with loads of suspense and feats of daring-do. The story opened with a series of art thefts, these events quickly instilled mystery and suspense into the book. From there, the story moved at a neck-breaking pace, where Andy McDermott threw scenes after scenes of epic action scenes at his readers; gun fights, fist fights, car chases, and fiery explosions. Yet, none of these crazy actions were enough to make up for this book (and the series') persisting weakness – that is, cartoonish characters. The villains in this book have these.... unrealistic motives. In fact, their villainous intentions are so unbelievable that I thought they were borrowed from some 1980's cartoon program. Furthermore, other than their appearances and nationalities, the villains in this book are almost interchangeable with the ones from the previous books. There is nothing memorable, or distinctive, about the villains in this book, it's almost as if the author just baked these villains from one cookie cutter.

Aside from villains who lackluster, The Sacred Vault also feels formulaic. Its structure followed the same formula as its predecessors, which can be summarized in these 6 stages: 

1) The bad guys are scheming to take over the world with an ancient secret X, 

2) Nina and Eddie are playing heroes to stop the baddies, 

3) Nina is kidnapped by the baddies, where the evil overlord reveals the plan to her, 

4) Eddie rescues Nina, and the wife-husband duo races the baddie to uncover the ancient secret X in some forgotten tomb, 

5) Nina and Eddie uncover the ancient secret X, only to have the baddies intrude and steal the secret from them, 

6) Nina and Eddie track the baddies to his evil hideout (usually in some remote location), where they kill the baddies and recover this ancient secret X, mere seconds before the world is destroyed.

Yes, The Sacred Vault just recycled the plot structure from the previous books. But my biggest qualm against this book (and the series), is that the evil overlords are really dumb!

I mean, if I was an evil overlord, when I capture the heroes, I will immediately shoot them in the heads. As an evil overlord, I would NEVER reveal my evil plan to the heroes, let alone wasting time telling them about it and risking the chances that my stupid henchmen might slip, letting the heroes escape with the knowledge of my master plan! But this sort of trope occurred book after book in this series. Seriously, this is just unrealistic and cartoon like.

Despite all these flaws, The Sacred Vault is not without its charm. Nina and Eddie remained very likable protagonists. This husband and wife duo bickered constantly throughout the whole book, and some of their dialogues are quite funny. Furthermore, the action sequences blew away the pages in this book with a cinematic quality. As an indication, I rated this book 3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. I like the character of Nina and Eddie, and I have a genuine like for this genre. This is why, I will be reading the sequel, Empire of Gold, because I still want to give this series another go. Hopefully, at the next time, I will be giving the sequel a higher rating.