Book Review: THE ALTAR OF BONES BY PHILIP CARTER

Genre:  Thriller
Published by:  Simon & Schuster  (May 2011)
Pages:  640  (Hardcover)
Source:  Received from the Publisher
My Rating:  9/10

About the Book:

Siberia, 1939. Pregnant with her first child, Lena Orlova plans a daring escape from a brutal Soviet prison camp to the one place she knows is safe: a cave containing the legendary Altar of Bones, hidden behind a frozen waterfall deep in the icy wilderness.
San Francisco, Present Day. Zoe Dmitroff discovers that she is the last in a line of women who have been entrusted with a secret so great many have died preserving it. Propelled into a dangerous quest to discover exactly what she was born to protect, Zoe is soon running for her life from a vicious assassin and an all powerful businessman with chilling plans. Only ex-Special Ops soldier, Ry O'Malley, can help her survive, but with time running out and the web closing in, Zoe will have to make a devastating decision that will transform her forever.
From the frozen wastelands of Russia, to the winding maze of Paris's backstreets, from Washington D.C, through America's mid-west all the way to San Francisco, THE ALTAR OF BONES is a gripping global thriller that spans the generations and unearths the dark secret behind one of the biggest conspiracies of all time.

Think Jack Reacher meets The Russian Sopranos meets Uma Thurman in Kill Bill and that will give you some idea of just what sort of a roller-coaster ride you’re in for.

Ry O’Malley, battle-hardened ex-soldier learns of his father’s death bed confession to ‘the big kill’ and of a film that he took many years ago and which someone is desperate to find.  So desperate that they’ll stop at nothing to find it.  His father wants Ry to find the film or they will kill him.  But who are they and what is on the film?

Then he meets Zoe, a tough and smart lady, who discovers that she’s The Keeper of The Altar of Bones, and the inevitable romance ensues.  But what is the Altar, where is it and what is the connection with the film of ‘the big kill’? 

There are twists galore in this absorbing plot, just when you think ‘how are they going to get out of yet another tight situation with the baddies literally breathing down their necks’ somehow they always manage it!  From hair-raising car chases to machine gun toting men they have to be one step ahead or they're dead.

The main characters of Ry and Zoe were incredibly likeable and the bad guys/girls (of course) were not!

This book has everything you would want in a conspiracy thriller, and I highly recommend it.


Apparently, the author, Philip Carter is the pseudonym of a best-selling international female writer of romance stories.....I have no idea who it is.  Do you?


At the time of writing the publishers have a great competition to win an iPad2 - but you have to read the book to discover the answer!  The link is here.