Since I liked the first three books by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child so much, my brother lent me a bagful more. Riptide was the fourth chronologically.
Here's a brief summary: a high tech team assembles to dig up buried pirate treasure on a mysterious island off the Maine coast.
I started thinking about the women in the Preston/Child books. All of the books I've read so far have multiple points-of-view. When I read Relic, I didn't realize that Relic was listed as part of the Pendergast series. I saw Margo Green as the main character in both Relic and its sequel Reliquary. Margo is a complex, fully-drawn character. So are the other major point-of-view characters: Aloysius Pendergast, Vincent D'Agosta and William Smithback.
The two stand-alone Preston/Child books I've read are Mount Dragon and Riptide. Although these also have multiple points-of-view, one narrator is prominent: Guy Carson in the former and Malin Hatch in the latter. Each book has a professional woman as a key part of the narrator's team who is exotic, voluptuous and gorgeous. That's it: they are barely more than caricatures whose bodies distract and entice the narrators. I can't even remember their names. In Riptide, the woman exposes "dangerous" amounts of leg and breast.
It's silly and bad writing. How can the team that created Margo in their first joint work fail so badly in Mount Dragon and Riptide?
That's a mystery I'd like to solve.
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