Book #6 - The 5 Greatest Warriors - Matthew Reilly

This guy is the king of action thrillers. He blows all of the competition away. This is the third and final book of a series which Jack West, Jr. is out to save the world. The previous book, The 6 Sacred Stones ended with the hero falling into an endless abyss to imminent death. Kindly, the author opens this book with a synopsis of what happened in the previous two. I'd forgotten a lot of it and was extremely grateful for the reminder. This book was fantastic. FANTASTIC. I cannot believe Steven Spielberg hasn't bought the rights to all three. This trilogy would be better than Star Wars and Indiana Jones combined. I can't remember ever reading an author with a style like Rielly. Most authors open their books with several chapters of what I call "background and build-up". Not Rielly, all three of these books begin with our characters already in the throws of peril. The characters develop smoothly and are each so unique and endearing. Another one of Jack's crew die during the adventures of this book, and there are countless twists of fate and underhanded moves, but all ends well...just as we would expect. I cannot imagine the research that went into these books. Not only did the characters go to all of the 7 ancient wonders, but also countless exotic places of historical importance. Tied into the race to save the world, Rielly brought to light every one of the most important historical figures including Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Moses, and Jesus Christ. INCREDIBLE. Also, each of the locations Jack goes to is surrounded by elaborate and extensive booby-traps. Rielly is so creative in the way in which he designed them, explained them, and then drew diagrams to help the reader better understand what he was trying to describe. You could literally see them in your mind's eye. I'm so glad that the story ended the way it did, but like any trilogy, there is a bit of a letdown when it is finished. I will be curious to see where Rielly goes next. I can't imagine designing a series of books any more stimulating than these were, but if anyone could do it, Matthew Rielly could.