Product Description

Deep in the jungles of Peru the contest of the century is underway. It's a race to locate a legendary Incan idol - one carved out of a strange kind of stone. But a stone which in the present century could be used for a terrifying new purpose.

Now rival groups are assembling their teams to hunt the idol down, at any cost.

The only clue to the idol's final resting place is to be found in a 400-year-old manuscript. Which introduces Professor William Race, a mild-mannered but brilliant young linguist who is unwillingly recruited to interpret the document that could lead to the idol itself.

So begins the mission that will lead Race and his companions to a mysterious temple hidden in the foothills of the Andes. There they find a carefully contrived sanctuary seething with menace and unexpected dangers. But it is not until the silence of the temple is breached that Race and his team discover they have broken a golden rule . . .

Some doors are meant to remain unopened.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16086 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 784 pages

About the Author

Matthew Reilly, born and still resident in Sydney, studied law before turning his pen to fiction. His previous novels, Contest, Ice Station, Temple, Area 7 and Scarecrow have been massive bestsellers in every continent.

Customer Reviews

Massively entertaining!
The book is non-stop action from beginning to end and would make a totally stunning, if very expensive, movie. The characters are all interesting enough and the weaving of the two stories set in different timeframes keeps you intrigued. The biggest compliment that I can pay Matthew Reilly is that I've found a techo-thriller writer as good as Lincoln Child & Douglas Preston.....and there's two of them!

Wow! How unrealistic / totally improbable can you get?!
I must admit that reviewing Temple isn't easy for me.

My usual reviewing style is to pan a book for minor inconsistencies in the plot or for unrealistic characters or for a lack of accuracy in information presented as being historically correct. By these standards Temple deserves one star (at most).

But here I am giving Temple four stars despite it being the most blatantly unrealistic and totally improbable book I've ever read!

The operative words here are BLATANTLY unrealistic. And FUN.

Reading a book by Matthew Reilly is like going to a liars convention, where the person who tells the most outlandish, unbelievable, crazy, entertaining story is the winner.

William Race, the hero of Temple, spends approximately 750 pages in constant action, fighting for his life, running for his life, dodging bullets and surviving one disaster after another, always at the very last "nanosecond" (one of Mr. Reilly's favorite words). William Race does things that are not just improbable but totally impossible. He cheats death every 10th page and spends the next nine pages getting into a situation that has only one possible outcome: certain death!

Several other reviewers have characterized Matthew Reilly's books as "comic books in words". Exactly! They can also be compared to the old Batman TV shows, where the screen explodes with a "POW" when one of the characters punches another character.

Here's an example of Matthew Reilly's prose (page 434 in the paperback edition I read):

"Race hit him again, and again, and again - yelling with each punch as the Nazi staggered backwards.
'Get -'
Punch.
'- off -'
Punch.
'- my -'
Punch.
'- boat!'"

In conclusion, totally unrealistic, totally improbable and 100% entertaining!

At the end of the paperback edition I read there's an 11-page interview with Matthew Reilly that I found quite interesting. Mr. Reilly is very up-front about writing books that attempt to pack as much action as possible between the covers, and he also describes how he became an author:

"What led you to self-publish Contest (Matthew Reilly's first book)?"

"Simple. I offered it to every major publisher in Sydney and they all rejected it!"

Sounds like something so improbable that it could be straight out of a Matthew Reilly book. :-)

Rennie Petersen

Just not conceivable, too extreme, ridiculous.
One of my criteria, that's indicative of enthralling reading, is, to complete the book. I could not suffer the last 150 pages of Temple. I'm sure Matthew Reilly is attempting battle with Alan Golds' LOST TESTAMENT, and one or two others of the sam ilk. But he fails, I found it impossible to be a part of the story, it was so predictable, no suprises, and definitely no suspense. I would rename this book "Prologue...Raiders of the Lost Ark"