David Gibbins - Crusader Gold

The second book in the Jack Howard series sees Mr Howard and friends on a quest to retrieve the Menorah, a golden Jewish relic lost to the ages. In a short sentence, it’s pretty much a copy of Atlantis in terms of the writing style and structure; there is lot of historic explanation, some crazy action sequences and a lot more plot explanation.

It suffers from the same ‘issues’ as the first book in that Jack is a walking Deus Ex Machina who knows the exact piece of information to continually drive the plot forward. That said, it’s still a good book that’s easy to read and has that ‘this could have happened in real life’ feel to it with its use of historical references.

In this case, it’s the ancient Viking Harald Hardrada who sacked Constantinople, stole the Menorah and sailed to Greenland and then on to America or, in this case, Newfoundland. Jack and company follow this trail while being pursued by some evil doers who are seeking the giant golden candlestick, not for historical purposes, but because it’s made of gold and worth a lot of money.

While telling its own story, Crusader Gold, appears to set the groundwork for some other group of people who will continually cross paths with Jack and try to kill him – adding excitement and exhilaration to their worldly travels.

There are two gripes I had with the story and one of the comes from the first book. Jack has unlimited resources at his disposal and while this is almost necessary for the course, it does feel rather convenient. It does make me wonder if there is going to be a future story where all his resources are stripped away – it might make some of his adventures slightly harder.

My other gripe was with the character Maria. She wasn’t mentioned in the first book at all, but is made out to be so close to Jack she’s practically his sister – which doesn’t make a lot of sense considering she was totally absent from the first book. If they were that close, you would have thought that Jack would have told her about a little thing like discovering Atlantis.

Crusader Gold clocks in at 449 pages but I reckon only 250 of those drive the story – the rest are spent explaining what’s going on and providing backstory to move the plot on to the next bit. There’s nothing wrong with that but at the same time, the balance just doesn’t feel right here.

Crusader Gold by David Gibbins was published by Headline Publishing Group in 2006. RRP £8.99 (Paperback)