Temple

William Race, a mild-mannered professor, is impressed into the U.S. army on a bizarre mission: to retrieve a centuries-old Incan idol revered by a Peruvian Indian tribe. The idol, carved out of a meteorite, is the missing ingredient in a so-called "planet-killer," a weapon long sought not only by the U.S. government, but also by a neo-Nazi group whose scientists, linguists, and anthropologists seem to be one step ahead of the Americans. Only Race can translate the legendary manuscript that holds the key to the idol's location high in the Andes in a temple guarded by huge, man-eating panthers, on a moat seething with equally carnivorous crocodiles.

It's a preposterous setup of the Crichton/Cook variety, but Matt Reilly, author of Ice Station, takes it to the max, with plenty of improbable feats of physical strength, an arsenal of weapons that would give Tom Clancy pause, and a breathtaking conclusion. There's also a sneaky little internecine war going on among various branches of the American military just to keep the tension ratcheted up. It's not too long on character development, but it's a fast-paced read, with plenty of cliffhangers (literal as well as metaphorical), lots of firepower, and enough villains for a whole other adventure. --Jane AdamsFour centuries ago, a precious idol was hidden in the jungles of Peru. To the Incan people, it was still the ultimate symbol of their spirit. To William Race, an American linguist enlisted by the U.S. Army to decipher the clues to its location, it's the ultimate symbol of the apocalypse...Carved from a rare stone not found on Earth, the idol possesses elements more destructive than any nuclear bomb-a virtual planet killer. In the wrong hands it could mean the end of mankind. And whoever possesses the idol, possesses the unfathomable-and cataclysmic-power of the gods...Now, in the foothills of the Andes, Race's team has arrived-but they're not alone. And soon they'll discover that to penetrate the temple of the idol is to break the first rule of survival. Because some treasures are meant to stay buried...and forces are ready to kill to keep it that way...AUTHORBIO: MATTHEW REILLY was born in 1974 and studied law at the University of New South Wales. At twenty-four, he has written three novels, several screenplays, and has had a few magazine articles published. In 1999, he sold the film rights to his first novel, the action-packed, sci-fi extravaganza, Conquest. His other novels include Ice Station and Temple. He lives in Sydney, Australia.