"The First Night", by Marc Levy

From the Ethiopian Highlands to the frozen wastes of Northern Urals, Marc Levy concludes with this novel an epic that began with “The First Day”. This is a good story for entertainment but not much more. The adventure is just as upbeat as the first volume with double plays throughout, many characters and honest heroes. Unfortunately it drags a lot and it is more worthy of a fairy tale to anything else.

Once again, the story begins on a rather sedate pace when the archaeologist Keira found herself kidnapped from the waters of a Chinese River. Adrian, her astrophysicist lover, considers all hope to see her safe and sound takes all his courage with both hands and goes to China in the hope of delivering her from the prison she is being held in. Once out, our two protagonists continue scouring the globe to find pieces of their puzzle that would reveal the secret of those mysterious stones found in “The First Day”. However the Secret Scientific Organization is hot on their tails….

Now, we have totally implausible chases and numerous twists to struggle with while getting into the race. Keira and Adrian cannot do anything without something happening to them. The pacing seemed almost more visual than literary I wonder if it was not intentional….Despite the hyperactive moments that features world travel, gun battles and the allegedly passionate love this adventure left me lukewarm.

The writing is nice, fluid but is rather long-winded for my taste. There is a fair amount of scientific details but where in the boundary between facts and the imaginary side in this novel? I was drowning in all those details, is it nonsense or not, right or wrong, I deducted it was…

The characterization is a bit banal nothing impressive but we do find a tremor of human interest in the relationships between the main players.

Even if this story does not make the top of my list of favourites it is nevertheless a good escape from our everyday life.