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FALLEN IDOLS
by J. F. Freedman
Warner Books, June 2003
421 pages
$19.95
ISBN: 0446531898


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Archaeologist, Walt Gaines, was the best in his field. He went on numerous excavations, was a full professor of archaeology, wrote books on the subject, had a wife he adored, and had three grown sons who were on the road to wonderful careers. He was living the high life until disaster struck on the ancient Mayan site of La Chimenea in Central America.

After a summer of work, just as Walt, his wife Jocelyn, and a group of student volunteers were leaving the archeological dig site to go back to the United States, the group ran into some problems. First, the Central American government pulled the soldiers who were supposed to protect them in the jungle, then something happened to a part on one of the jeeps and it had to be repaired, then a sudden rainstorm made the roads terribly muddy and it slowed them down, and then a fallen tree had blocked the road and it had to be cleared off. Instead of turning around and returning to La Chimenea to try to leave the next day, Walt, with encouragement from his wife and a female volunteer, decided to have the group keep trying to make their way to the airport.

Suddenly they were surrounded by a band of thieves who held them at gun point, stole all of the their belongings, including artifacts from the ruin, and then, just as Walt thought they would be released, a violent rainstorm struck and one of the bandits shot into his group. Waltıs wife, Jocelyn, was the only one killed. For Walt and his family, things were never to be the same after that.

A year after Jocelynıs death, Walt, then sixty-one, left the college where he had been teaching for thirty years and opted for an early retirement. Then, in secret, he moved to a very expensive area in California, took up with a woman who was half his age, and did his best not to see his three sons, Clancy, Tom, and Will.

His sons, feeling abandoned by their motherıs sudden death and then their father snubbing them, decided to find out what was going on in Waltıs life. They visited his new home and met his new girlfriend. On the surface Walt seemed to be doing well. He said he was lecturing and traveling to set some interesting things set up for himself. But, to his sons, who thought they knew Walt best, something was not quite right.

By doing some research, the sons found out that Waltıs new home cost millions of dollars. They knew Walt didnıt have that kind of money so they started to look into their parentsı financial affairs and discovered some terrible things about both Walt and Jocelyn. What horrified them most was that they started to hear rumors that Walt was involved in stealing Mayan artifacts and was no longer welcomed on the site in Central America. They also found out that no university would give him a job as a teacher -- or a lecturer.

As the three sons did their own excavation on their parentsı lives, they discovered that their remembered, perfect childhood was not as idyllic as they thought it was.

FALLEN IDOLS, written by J. F. Freedman, is fairly interesting when he takes us into the rain forest and La Chimenea. Even though the archaeological details might not be exactly accurate, it was fascinating to read about the country and the Mayan ruins. But the moment the book left the jungle and started on the mystery part of the story, dealing with Jocelynıs death, including who stole the priceless Mayan artifacts, the novel wasnıt nearly as good or believable.

Most of the book follows the sons as they travel from Chicago, where they live, to Los Angeles, where their father lives, back to Chicago then back to Los Angeles. With all this traveling the story still goes nowhere. Details that have nothing to do with the main mystery, like how much a car rental cost, are thrown at us in abundance. And included are some sex scenes that are completely pointless.

Then there is the countless whining. The three sons had every opportunity in life handed to them on a platter because their father was famous and able to afford them a good life and education. Yet theyıre always complaining: the genus son about finishing a doctorate that he has been working on for five years, or the cash flow of a bar, a second successful business that the doctor son owns, and how the financial wizard youngest son decides to accept a position in smaller Chicago instead of in New York, because he wants more time to feel comfortable when he makes more money than the millions that heıs already making.

Walt, the father, is no better. ³When do I get the chance to be happy?² he constantly whines. This man might have had to get over the murder of his wife and loss of a job, but he was successful in his field for all of his adult life, he was still very healthy and attractive, had a full pension to live on, and had three brilliant sons, and a grandchild on the way. Most people donıt have it that good at any point in life.

J. F. Freedman plays loose and lax with much of the preliminary details of the story, so that when the readers finally get to the last chapters, thereıs a sense that the writer was hiding clues from us.

Which leads me to the very last chapter where the whole complete mystery is spelled out for the readers ­ and the investigating sons. It includes the conveniently deleted clues that the readers should have been privy to from the first chapter. We were there as Walt spoke to himself during a very important moment in La Chimenea and yet we werenıt told what was actually going on. How did he stop his thoughts about the earth shattering events that had just occurred, leaving the readers clueless? No logical reason, the writer just skipped over them.  

All I could do was wonder why I bothered to read 300 pages of this book when the last chapter fills us in on blanks that we should have seen while living through the event with the characters. Mr. Freedman simply hid many things from us in order to keep the mystery unsolved until the final chapter.

FALLEN IDOLS had some good parts to it but they were few and far between. And it was not worth it to me to read over 400 pages to have the last chapter suddenly spell out the full story. We didnıt get to solve or discover the mystery while reading the novel. The answer was simple sprung upon us at the very end.

I was very disappointed in this book. Save your time and money. Read something else.

Reviewed by Sharon Katz, July 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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