The Darziods' Stone by Richard Smith

The Darziod's Stone by Richard Smith
Buy The Darziods' Stone by Richard Smith at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Teens
Reviewer: Jill Murphy
Summary: Fast-moving ancient conspiracy thriller, in which modern day teenagers take on the Knights Templar with a little bit of extraterrestrial help. Hugely fun stuff.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 396	Date: August 2016
Publisher: Upfront
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 1784563730
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When the school summer trip to Blackpool gets cancelled, Harry's parents offer to include Harry's friends in their trip to Tredock Cove in Cornwall. Amelia, Mitch and Asad are grateful - Cornwall will be great and, even if it isn't as great as Blackpool, anything is better than being stuck at home, right? Ryan is less convinced. He's not the most open-minded of boys and he sincerely believes that Cornwall is full of carrot-crunchers. But he goes along anyway, even if it is reluctantly. Even Ryan doesn't want to be left at home by himself.

And it doesn't take long for the quiet break in Cornwall to turn into something much more exciting - and frightening. The kids find a secret code and become convinced that cracking it will lead them to hidden treasure. And it might well do, but the code will also lead them to something much more dangerous...

... because as readers of The Darziod's Stone will already know, thanks to a prologue dating back to 1798, Tredock Cove was once the scene of something very sinister indeed. A ship returning from the Napoleonic wars once stopped off there. Its captain and boatswain were murdered and the rest of the crew disappeared, never to be found. The world never knew this but an experiment conducted by a band of prisoner alchemists, led by the evil de Richlieu, was to blame.

As our heroes search for treasure, they find themselves pitted against these ancient forces. And they will need some extraterrestrial help if they ever hope to defeat them.

My gosh! The Darziod's Stone is a roller coaster of a read! The action comes thick and fast and there are twists and turns aplenty. There's also a large cast of lead and secondary characters to keep up with. If you enjoy a high octane thriller that balances multiple plot threads and character arcs, you will thoroughly enjoy it. It combines a boys own adventure feel with ancient conspiracy and a touch of sci-fi. You have alchemists, the Knights Templar, mind control, reversing magnetic polarities, alien benefactors - you name it, The Darziod's Stone has it.

I enjoyed the bighearted enthusiasm of it all and the touch of humour lent by some of the sassy dialogue. I also enjoyed the relationships between the friends, which included standard peer group rivalries as well as the standard heroic loyalty you'd expect from the main characters in an adventure story of derring-do.

The Darziod's Stone is one for the fan of adventure thrillers, those who like to read fast and hard and don't want the action to drop for a single second. Because, I promise you, it doesn't.

If you enjoy a thriller mixing ancient conspiracies with the supernatural, you might also enjoy Ghost Chamber by Celia Rees. It's a rattlingly good read and also talks about the Knights Templar.

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You can read more book reviews or buy The Darziods' Stone by Richard Smith at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.

You can read more book reviews or buy The Darziods' Stone by Richard Smith at Amazon.com.

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