Seven Wonders

June 16, 2014
A bestselling author of nonfiction (Bringing Down the House; The Accidental Billionaires), Mezrich ventures into thriller territory with enjoyable results. The murder of anthropologist Jack Grady’s 28-year-old twin brother, Jeremy, brings Jack to MIT, where he recovers a hidden thumb-drive, which proves that Jeremy, a mathematical savant, discovered a seemingly impossible link between the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and the new Seven Wonders of the World. The sole anomaly is Brazil’s immense statue of Christ the Redeemer, and it is there Jack heads for clues. A series of finds leads Jack and his companion, botanist Sloane Costa, to other wondrous sites, where they are shadowed by operatives of billionaire Jendari Saphra. Like Indiana Jones, Jack must overcome a number of obstacles, including spiders, snakes, and booby traps, en route to uncovering an ancient secret. Mezrich has written a rollicking adventure with a fantastic behind-the-scenes tour of some of the world’s most intriguing spots. Agent: Eric Simonoff, WME.

September 15, 2014
A ripping yarn torn from the pages of many another adventure tale, this high-speed, low-quality mashup concerns an ancient female sect and the present-day seekers of its secrets. When brainy Jeremy Grady is slain in his MIT computer lab, it's soon clear that the murderer failed to reckon with twin brother and doughty field anthropologist Jack. He has a support team comprising a silent computer whiz and a wisecracking Asian who manage the problems Jack can't handle with his wits, his muscle or his uncanny puzzle-solving skills. (And yet, he fails to notice that the word "seven" has "eve" between the two global "n" and "s" poles!) As he works to unravel his brother's mind-boggling discovery about a connection between the Ancient and Modern Seven Wonders of the World, Jack acquires a partner in stoic botanical geneticist Sloane Costa. Her desire for tenure and her incredible discovery in the lower depths of the Coliseum might further Jack's pursuit of the centuries-old Amazons and the Order of Eve and maybe the Tree of Life in Eden. But can they stay one step ahead of the beautiful DNA-business billionaire Jendari Saphra, who covets the secret of Mitochondrial Eve and has at her disposal a fantastic wardrobe (Swarovski, Herve Leger, Versace) and a centuries-old gang of trained killers with ivory javelins? What about the asps, the giant crocodile, the 40,000 severed hands and the countless spiders? Mezrich (Straight Flush, 2013, etc.) rings up a debt to, among others, James Bond, Indiana Jones, the Nicholas Cage National Treasure series and the Brendan Fraser mummy movies that is incalculable. OK, it's a genre rife with borrowing but rarely on such a scale. A comiclike outing rich in repetition and cliches, this typing exercise is at heart an intriguing story that deserved a writer who could rise at least to the level of a Dan Brown, yet another Mezrich creditor.

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Starred review from July 1, 2014

When reclusive math genius Jeremy is murdered in an MIT lab, his twin, Jack, a high-tech Indiana Jones-like anthropologist, arrives seeking answers. While inspecting the crime scene, Jack stumbles upon Jeremy's covert research, a connection between the ancient and modern Seven Wonders of the World. Jack and his team traverse the globe recovering components of an ancient artifact that somehow connects the Seven Wonders to his own professional focus, the legendary tribe of female warriors known as the Amazons. During each leg, Jack encounters women intent on terminating his quest. Could these women be modern Amazons? What secret do they protect? Mezrich (Bringing Down the House) is adept at writing captivating, well-researched nonfiction that translates successfully into film (21). Marking the author's fiction debut (and Running Press's first foray into commercial fiction in collaboration with producer/director Brett Ratner's Ratpac Press publishing imprint), this is a relic-hunt thriller in the same vein as works by Katherine Neville, Steve Berry, and Raymond Khoury. Much like Juliet Fortier's The Lost Sisterhood, this novel is grounded in a thorough knowledge of classical literature, with skillful interweaving of plausible archaeological speculation, ancient mythology, and exciting modern adventure. VERDICT Readers who enjoy artifact-seeking books with behind-the-scenes tours of real-life sites will be delighted. [Ratner is set to adapt a film version.--Ed.]--Laura Cifelli, Fort Myers-Lee Cty. P.L., FL

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2014
Most readers probably know Mezrich as the author of such nonfiction gems as Bringing Down the House (2002) and The Accidental Billionaires (2009). It might seem like a surprise that he's written a novel, but before he turned his hand to narrative nonfiction, he wrote a handful of novels under his own name and a pseudonym (Holden Scott). This new novel compares nicely with those; it's a fast-moving thriller involving murder, conspiracy, historical mystery, and the Seven Wonders of the World (specifically the startling correlation between the Seven Ancient Wonders and the Seven Modern Wonders, several of which seem to have been built on the remains of the Ancient Wonders). Mezrich builds the characters in this made-up story the same way he builds them in his nonfiction: slowly, piece by piece, adding layers of motivation and complexity as the story progresses; and his writing here is as fluid as it's ever been. Is the book as riveting as, say, The Accidental Billionaires? No. Is it enjoyable and imaginative? Hell, yeah.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)