New Book Alert: Cleopatra's Vendetta (A Stryker Thriller) by Avanti Centrae; Complex,Suspenseful, and Exciting Combination of Fanciful Adventure with Gritty Thriller

 

New Book Alert: Cleopatra's Vendetta (A Stryker Thriller) by Avanti Centrae; Complex,Suspenseful, and Exciting Combination of Fanciful Adventure with Gritty Thriller 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Avanti Centrae's books could be considered the Indiana Jones of adventure novels. They are exciting suspenseful chases in which the characters find some lost treasure that contains knowledge about history that challenges our previous perceptions of the past. Of course there are villains following close behind with the drive to kill the good guys, steal the treasure, and bury the information.

Centrae's previous series, The Van Ops is a great example of these adventures, featuring twins who are part of a secret government organization that searches for these treasures. Her other series, The Stryker Thrillers combines the style of the more fanciful adventure novels with the more grounded political thrillers. It's a strange but effective crossover of genres.

The estranged wife and daughter of Timothy Stryker, leader of M2, a military SpecOps Unit, have been kidnapped. It's up to Stryker and his sister-in-law and fellow M2 member Sam to find her. Meanwhile, Stryker's partner Jeronimo Guerrero Reyes is investigating a series of assassinations of high profile leaders with the assistance of Jane Parish, a British agent. Eventually it is revealed that the kidnappings and assassinations are linked because of an ancient religious sect called Sons of Adam that is tied to the true circumstances surrounding Cleopatra VII's death and it had nothing to do with asps.

There are some exciting moments that are to be found such as when Stryker and Sam trail a suspect to a bar to learn about Angie and Harper, Stryker's wife and daughter's whereabouts. Then there is the moment when Rey is an eyewitness to an assassination and follows the hitman through India.

Angie herself has some gripping scenes during her captivity when she struggles to find out where she is and what her captors want her for. Every character has several moments where they have to use strength, skill, and intelligence to get out of a bad situation.

There are also some great chapters that piece together the story of Cleopatra and characters explore what might be her tomb. The clues are tantalizing and very revealing about who she was and what information the Sons of Adam want to suppress.

This is the kind of book where there is a cliffhanger in nearly every chapter and the Reader can't wait to see what happens next and what it all leads to.

Even though politics are often involved in Adventure stories (usually the characters are employed, hired, or stopped by some government), it is often in the background with fanciful almost cartoonish representatives. Since Cleopatra's Vendetta is combined with the political thriller genre, there is an air of gritty reality to the suspense that goes beyond the archaic clues and narrow escapes in most of these books. 

Stryker's team for example is a veritable buffet of PTSD, addictions, and horrible pasta that make them characters that wrestle not only with antagonists outside but their own inner demons.

 While she and Harper are kidnapped, Angie fears that they might be taken by a human trafficking ring (and she's not too far off). 

Many of the protagonists commit violent actions in the name of gathering information and work for shady government representatives who couldn't care less if they live or die. Even though the adventure is rooted in the old tradition of black and white, good vs. evil, Cleopatra's Vendetta features characters who live in a world of muted gray.

There is treasure to be found, information to be learned, and a history that is faced and seen with new eyes. Most of it surrounds the true character of Cleopatra. Even the opening prologue focuses on the Egyptian queen moments before her death. 

Like the adventure surrounding Cleopatra and the clues about her death, the aura of mystique is removed from her giving a more complex portrayal than most of her representations. Usually, Cleopatra is portrayed as a highly wealthy femme fatale who took both Mark Antony and Julius Caesar as lovers. 

But many historians do not focus on Cleopatra's rule and immense leadership skills. She was considered one of the last great rulers of the Egyptian royal dynasties. She successfully wrestled the kingdom from her brother Ptolemy and was a consummate strategist who spoke several languages and studied the philosophers in learning how to adapt her thinking. In fact, her unions with Caesar and Antony weren't solely for carnal pleasures as they were to form powerful alliances with the Romans. She was thought in her day to be the reincarnation of Isis, Egypt's Goddess of fertility, magic, healing, death, and rebirth. This book restores the Egyptian queen's character and makes her just as powerful in death as she was in life. 

To focus only on Cleopatra's beauty and her lovers tell only half the story. It's like talking only about Elizabeth I's relationship with Robert Dudley but not focusing on her long reign and leadership. In her own way, Centrae allows her characters to bring the real Cleopatra's legacy to light.

The thriller aspects of espionage match well with the adventurous look at history making Cleopatra's Vendetta a complex, suspenseful, and exciting combination.