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Riptide

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Overview

TIDE OF OBSESSION...
Three hundred years ago a pirate buried his bounty on a treacherous island off the coast of Maine. Now a high-tech treasure hunter is bringing his million-dollar recovery team to Ragged Island.

TIDE OF DANGER...
They have the best hardware, the best divers, and the perfectly planned operation. There's only one problem: this island kills.

TIDE OF EVIL...
First the computers fail. Then one man dies and then another. Now the wind has begun to howl and the mysteries of Ragged Island are cracking open. Inside a rocky fortress of tunnels, traps, and tides, a priceless treasure lies waiting....And so does an unimaginable evil...RIPTIDE

Editorial Reviews

The authors' first and bestselling thriller, The Relic, hit the lists in part for its clever exploitation of an extraordinary settingAthe American Museum of Natural History. Just so, their fourth novel (after Reliquary) makes sprightly use of Nova Scotia's Oak Island and its notorious Money PitAhere transplanted to offshore Maine as the Water Pit on Ragged Island. The novel opens with a brisk recap of often fatal efforts over the past 200 years to recover a fabled treasureAnow worth $2 billion and including a mysterious relic, St. Michael's SwordAhidden by English pirate Edward Ockham in the Water Pit. The difficulty is that the Pit, nearly 200 feet deep, was designed to flood and to kill through booby traps anyone trying to broach the treasure. Into this nifty setup steps Martin Hatch, returning to Ragged Island 25 years after his brother and father died in the Pit. Hatch is back as part of a massive expedition attempting a high-tech assault on the Pit. Brash melodrama ensues as expedition members suffer various gory accidents and as Hatch realizes that the Sword possesses a quality that may kill the entire expedition. The novel suffers from a diffusion of villainsAthe authors variously demonize the Pit, the Pit's designer, the crazed expedition leader and the SwordAand from workaday prose and assembly-line characters (a computer nerd, a sexy French archeologist, a righteous minister). Machine-gun pacing, startling plot twists and smart use of legend, scientific lore (including cyptanalysis) and the evocative setting carry the day, however, resulting in an exciting boys' adventure tale for adults that's bound to be one of most popular of the summer reads. Film rights optioned by Arnold Kopelson; foreign rights sold in eight countries; simultaneous Time Warner audio. (July) FYI: The mystery of Oak Island and its Money Pit has been detailed in several books (e.g., D'arcy O'Conner's The Money Pit, 1978). The Pit, target over the past two centuries of numerous failed expeditions costing millions of dollars and six lives, is variously rumored to contain Captain Kidd's treasure, Incan gold and even the Holy Grail.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
-- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Lincoln Child

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are the coauthors of the bestselling novels The Relic, Mount Dragon, Reliquary, and Riptide. Lincoln Child is a former book editor at St. Martin's Press and has published numerous short-story anthologies. He welcomes reader e-mail at prestonchild@prestonchild.com.

Bio of Douglas Preston

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are the coauthors of the bestselling novels The Relic, Mount Dragon, Reliquary, and Riptide. Douglas Preston worked for the American Museum of Natural History, is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, and in 1989 retraced Coronado's thousand-mile odyssey on horseback. He welcomes reader e-mail at prestonchild@prestonchild.com.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Hachette Book Group USA

Filesize

2.28 MB

Number of Pages

496

eBook ISBN

9780446402736

Excerpt from: Riptide by Lincoln Child

July 1971
Malin Hatch was bored with summer. He and Johnny had spent the early part of the morning throwing rocks at the hornet's nest in the old well-house. That had been fun. But now there was nothing else to do. It was just past eleven, but he'd already eaten the two peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches his mother had made him for lunch. Now he sat crosslegged on the floating dock in front of their house, looking out to sea, hoping to spot a battleship steaming over the horizon. Even a big oil tanker would do. Maybe it would head for one of the outer islands, run aground, and blow up. Now that would be something.
His brother came out of the house and rattled down the wooden ramp leading to the dock. He was holding a piece of ice on his neck. "Got you good," Malin said, secretly satisfied that he had escaped stinging and that his older, supposedly wiser, brother had not. "You just didn't get close enough," Johnny said through his last mouthful of sandwich. "Chicken."
"I got as close as you."
"Yeah, sure. All those bees could see was your skinny butt running away." He snorted and winged the piece of ice into the water. "No, sir. I was right there."
Johnny plopped down beside him on the dock, dropping his satchel next to him. "We fixed those bees pretty good though, huh, Mal?" he said, testing the fiery patch on his neck with one forefinger.
"Sure did."
They fell silent. Malin looked out across the little cove toward the islands in the bay: Hermit Island, Wreck Island, Old Hump, Killick Stone. And far beyond, the blue outline of Ragged Island, appearing and disappearing in the stubborn mist that refused to lift even on this beautiful midsummer day. Beyond the islands, the open ocean was, as his father often said, as calm as a millpond.
Languidly, he tossed a rock into the water and watched the spreading ripples without interest. He almost regretted not going into town with his parents. At least it would be something to do. He wished he could be anywhere else in the world-Boston, New York-anywhere but Maine.
"Ever been to New York, Johnny?" he asked.
Johnny nodded solemnly. "Once. Before you were born."
What a lie, Malin thought. As if Johnny would remember anything that had happened when he was less than two years old. But saying so out loud would be to risk a swift punch in the arm.
Malin's eye fell on the small outboard tied at the end of the dock. And he suddenly had an idea. A really good idea.
"Let's take it out," he said, lowering his voice and nodding at the skiff. "You're crazy," Johnny said. "Dad would whip us good." "Come on," Malin said. "They're having lunch at the Hastings after they finish shopping. They won't be back until three, maybe four.
Who's gonna know?"
"Just the whole town, that's all, seeing us going out there."
"Nobody's gonna be watching," said Malin. Then, recklessly, he added, "Who's chicken now?"