2017 - Book 1 - The Midas Legacy

The Midas Legacy by Andy McDermott
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Another Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase adventure from the stable of Andy McDermott. When the series started with Wilde & Chase it was among my favorite series with lots of action and adventure mixed with archaeology. As time moved on, unfortunately the series character did not move on. The remained the same one-dimensional cardboard cut outs. Yes the story line appeared linear with Wilde & Chase falling in love an marrying, but the depth to the characters was missing.

With so many books released in the series, there was a real chance here for the author to expand on the characters and really allow the readers to relate to them. But I guess that's a missed opportunity. Nina Wilde is now a consultant and an author, she's famous but not very happy with her life. I really did not like how the character of Wilde has developed, she constantly bitches in the book, harangues her husband and is completely miserable with her life as a mother and a non-archaeologist. The character did not develop in my point of view, she came across as a person who took a decision and then decided to spread the misery of it to everybody around her. I would give Chase a medal for just putting up with her in this book.

Being a reader of all the books in this series, the plot was relatively easy to guess, the bad guys were not even one dimensional, the twists could be predicted from almost a proverbial mile away and the baddies were overtly buffoonish in their approach. Other than our lead pair, I guess everybody and their pet must have seen through the twists. As usual when Wilde and Chase are involved in their shenanigans some priceless artifact, site or piece of history gets utterly destroyed because the world is a proverbial hell and only Wilde and Chase have the moral compass to do the right things, the rest of the people are always selfish and utter b******s who like to destroy things for selfish gain.

The books are formulaic and can be read for escapism. I liked to read through the book to understand if I could guess all the bad guys before the author revealed them and then also guess the finale or the things that the lead pair would break or destroy on their way to saving a precious artifact which always ends up getting destroyed.

Overall I would give this 2 stars. I have read better from McDermott and would like to see him write some better ones in future.