I received this Kindle edition through Netgalley.

"The Lost Book of Wonders written by Chad Brecher has exciting plot line, is a fast paced novel with fantastic characterization and superb narration".

The story opens in Venice, 15th April 1355, as Domenico secretly takes a metal chest to hand over it to his Captain. But he finds that his captain is dead and he been followed. Domenico drowns the metal chest before he dies.

Present day in Venice an engineer Pietro Zeno finds the metal chest and hands it to Dr.Bernardo Gozzi Director of Biblioteca Marciana Library. The story shifts to Mosul, Iraq, as the members of MART (Mesopotamian Antiquity Recovery Team) Eleanor Griffin and Gordon Russell tries to meet Security chief at the National Museum, Hamzi Hussein. Before the secret meeting he was killed and his son hands over a box, the place explodes and Gordon Russell gives the box to Eleanor before he too dies. She interprets that the box is cursed. The metal chest in Venice and the box in Mosul are inter connected.

Alexander Stone is an assistant to a medievalist Kenneth Graham. In a convention Alex meets Eleanor and then the mystery of the cursed box is revealed. Eleanor contacts Dr.Gozzi. They travel to Italy. Same time Pietro and Gozzi are killed. Before Gozzi dies he sends a cryptic message to Eleanor email. After coming to know Gozzi's murder Eleanor decodes the message and the adventure takes a mega twist. Unknown to them the secret society "Order of the Christ" and "Darkhad" are behind them, they have one helping hand, Redmund Clay a reclusive pharmaceutical mogul, and they are not sure who to trust.

As the story progresses many characters are introduced which helps to increase the pace of the story and densely weaving the mystery element. What is in the metal chest and the box, what it has to do with Fra Mauro map, why the secret society is trying to kill them all these are revealed in the last half of the novel.
The author has cleverly written most of the chapters ending with cliff hanger so as to make us to read the next chapter without giving a break. The back story of Eleanor, Clay's determination, his sacrifice, and lastly an academician and not an adventurer, logical Alexander Stone are worth mentioning.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and also spent couple of hours in internet in reading the related story element. I was amazed at the work of Chad on his expertise in Marco Polo, Venice and Mongolia.

And finally I like to quote the opening of the book:

…because there are many great and strange things in his book, which are reckoned past all credence, he was asked by his friends on his death bed to correct it by removing everything that went beyond the facts. To which his reply was that he had not told one half of what he had actually seen.

Dominican friar Jacopo d'Acqui, Imago Mundi, on the death bed of Marco Polo.

This book is non stop action! Every page compels you to read the next. I hope to see a lot more from Chad Beecher!

The twist and turns regarding perspectives at the beginning of the book made it really difficult for me personally to get into. At around page 160 I started to understand the storyline better however around 50 to 60 pages after that the writing style started to bog me down. I really feel like this book would make a better movie than a book. If you're a fan of "The DaVinci Code" with bits of information about Marco Polo thrown in then you might like this book.

The Da Vinci Code meets Indiana Jones! I enjoyed all the historical references and even if not entirely factual, to me at least it was believeable. Marco Polo's story was not known to me , although the references to Venice brought back happy memories of a visit.. With a little romance thrown in to the adventure , a jolly good read.

4 stars

Our story starts in 1355 in Venice. A man is trying to get a mysterious chest aboard a ship when he discovers the captain has been murdered. He is being chased, so he tips the chest into the water and commits suicide.

When Venice is undergoing a facelift due to the sinking of the city, the chest is discovered. This brings a secret society to the fore to take possession of the chest. Supposedly the chest belonged to Marco Polo who as we know, said that he didn’t tell all in his memoirs. This secret society is going all out to obtain possession of the chest and its contents.

Dr. Eleanor “Ellie” Griffin is an archeologist currently in Iraq doing research in the Iraq National Museum when a mission goes badly wrong. She barely gets away with a box that she discovered in a tomb. After returning home, she teams up with a graduate student to follow the clues offered in the box.

This book is well written and plotted. It is both exciting and suspenseful. It reads smoothly. This is my first Chad Brecher book, but it won’t be my last if this one is anything to go by. I really enjoyed it.

I want to thank Netgalley and Deeds Publishing for forwarding to me a copy of this great book to read.

Thank you.
Enjoyed it.
Will purchase copies for family and friends.

Venice is rapidly sinking and as engineers struggle to find a way to save the city, they find a metal box, last seen in 1355, beneath the waters of the lagoon. The box is believed to have belonged to the explorer Marco Polo, and one group of people, who have been looking for the box and its contents for hundreds of years will do anything to posses it. They believe that Marco Polo did not divulge all that he saw in the East. Meanwhile, biblical archaeologist Ellie Griffin is trying to save looted museum treasures in Iraq when she also encounters a strange box . She teams up with grad student Alex Stone to try yo find out what the two boxes man, even as a shadowy group begins a search for the most sought after treasure in history