Boyd Morrison presents a fast-paced thriller searching for Noah’s Ark
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Gabrielle Pantera
“I thought, if Indiana Jones can make archaeologists seem cool, why can’t I do the same for engineers?” says The Ark author Boyd Morrison. “While I’ve seen many thriller novels with heroes who were cops, spies, doctors, and lawyers, I hadn’t seen any with an engineer as the protagonist. So I created former army combat engineer Tyler Locke, who uses his skills in demolitions and bomb disposal to get out of the dangerous situations he faces in his adventures.”
The Ark is an action-adventure story that uncovers a dangerous secret within the remains of Noah’s Ark. Dilara Kenner sees her mentor Sam die as he’s telling her he knows what happened to her father. Her father was searching for Noah’s Ark when he vanished. Sam’s last words to her are, find Tyler Locke. Dilara does that, even if it requires crash landing in the ocean. Dilara needs the help of Tyler and his co-worker Grant Westfield. They must solve the puzzle of where the lost ark is today.
“I’m an engineer by training, and I’m a huge fan of thrillers,” says Morrison. “When I was looking for a story to build around Tyler, I saw a documentary about the search for Noah’s Ark. Being an engineer, I’m a skeptic. I wondered how a 450-foot-long wooden vessel could still be on the slopes of Mt. Ararat without having rotted away or been found after 6,000 years.”
“Then I realized that there might be another explanation,” says Morrison. “Maybe we’ve been purposefully deceived so that the Ark would remain hidden because it held a secret so terrible that it could wipe out the human race all over again. When I came up with what that secret was, I was off and running with the story.”
Morrison researched the story of Noah by reading Noah’s Flood by Norman Cohn, Noah’s Flood by William Ryan and Walter Pitman, and Before The Flood by Ian Wilson.
Besides referencing books, Morrison made use of the Internet and also did research in person. “For a shootout on the Seattle monorail and Space Needle, I traced the exact steps my characters took for the scene. I also got to ride in a Tesla electric roadster, which is featured in the Phoenix car chase.”
While The Ark is an easy read, the hero is a little too perfect and without much character development. Although the story is ostensibly about the ark, the vessel itself gets little mention for much of the book. The hair-raising problems that Dilara, Tyler and Grant encounter are the charm of the book. The Ark features great gadgets and is fast-paced reading. Guys will love this book.
Morrison recently completed Rogue Wave, a standalone thriller out December 2010. He’s currently writing another Tyler Locke adventure, a sequel to The Ark. In the UK, The Ark will be released in August as The Noah’s Ark Quest.
The Ark: A Novel by Boyd Morrison. Hardcover: 432 pages, Publisher: Touchstone; 1 edition (May 11, 2010). Language: English ISBN: 9781439181799
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