Hunt for the Holy Grail

Olivia Newton, Book 1

By: Preston William Child

Narrated by: Jonathan Waters

Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

When a secret lab in Antarctica suddenly goes down in an incredible explosion, Olivia starts suspecting a cover-up. She soon discovers that something is taken from the lab, something that will tip the scale of world domination, should it get into the wrong hands. It isn’t long before Olivia discovers to whom those fabled “wrong hands” belong - the Knights Templar.

The Templars lose the Holy Grail after taking it from its hiding place in the Antarctic secret lab, but they are determined not to lose it again. They send a ruthless assassin to get it back.

Everything begins to fall apart for Olivia when Peter is suddenly taken from his home. Olivia is presented with a dilemma: the Holy Grail for Peter’s life.

Olivia Newton joins members of her old team to find the Holy Grail. But the treasure hunters are heading straight into disaster, facing sabotage, murder...and a deadly, invisible enemy....

©2020 Preston W. Child (P)2020 Preston W. Child

Very Disappointing.

Story was very predictable but the narration was atrocious. The only one with narration worse than this was The President is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson.

Not the best unfortunately.

I’m a huge fan of Preston Child books and have most of them. In my opinion, this one missed the mark. It’s only book one but I think I’m going to skip book 2. Not as good as Pendergast, Gideon Crew or Nora Kelly books.

Please try again.

Gotta admit, I couldn’t finish this. The book started out “okay”, but the further they got on the expedition, the further from any semblance of credibility it ventured. I realize this is a somewhat fantastic premise. I’m more than willing to suspend disbelief. But come on!
Also, the book poorly jumps from one scene to the next making it difficult to follow.

I bailed out when the main character bailed out of the U boat. I suggest you bail out much sooner.

This might have been a good story idea, but it severely needs to be rewritten.

Hunt for a single story

We are in an old Nazi installation that kind of ends and we are looking for the Holy Grail these two are not related but the author tried to weave them together . To many people in the story to keep track of they die and you say OK what did this have to do with the story . Sorry

Frustrating storyline and narration

Huge Preston Child fan, but this was most disappointing. Reads more like an outline. Feels like author didn’t care to take the time to tell the whole story. The narrator didn’t give life to the characters, Happy, sad, scared, angry....it all sounded the same. Won’t be buying more of this series.

some good surprises

the characters ate likeable and well developed. however I almost think it should have been two books. There is a kind of disconnect between the two sections.

Don’t bother

This is one of the most poorly written books I have ever read. The story jumped around dizzingly. There were too many characters, and the writing is deplorable. The author consistently tells instead of showing. Truly awful.

The worst

Where do I start? The only protagonist in this book I had any empathy for was the cat Smokey and the author doesn’t even resolve what happened to him. The intended protagonist is a drunk who had roaches in her kitchen and she’s never redeemed beyond that. And let’s talk about the performance. If there are female characters how about getting someone that sounds female do those parts? And when pronouncing Italian words how about trying to pronounce them in Italian. Polizia - you actually pronounce all the vowels, this isn’t French people. Worst of all the so-called plot - it’s like reading two books with the same characters but no tie-in. There was little to nothing tying together the Nazi Antarctic lab and the Grail. Total waste of time

Ridiculous plot line!

Storyline was all over the place. Characters had no depth, and were unrelatable. I bought the book quickly, by accident, thinking this was a book by Preston and Childs. what a disappointment!

terrible story and I never write bad reviews

from polar bears in Antarctica, U Boats with port holes, "Special Magnum" guns (whatever that means), etc. etc. It was just one poor unresearched fact after another. Please save yourself the time.