Adventure stories don’t come more action-packed than the exploits of Jake Atlas. As the book opens, the Atlas family are about to fly off to Egypt on a working holiday (Mum and Dad are Egyptologists) and the family tension is so strong you can almost hear it twang; tension of a different kind quickly racks up when Jake’s parents are kidnapped. To save them he and his twin sister Pandora team up with a couple of unscrupulous if well-equipped tomb robbers. After years of academic failure Jake can finally use his true talents, dodging explosions, outthinking the bad guys, even wrestling a giant snake. It’s great fun, the Egyptian settings giving it an extra edge and the developing relationship between Jake and Pan (and latterly their parents who’ve been keeping secrets of their own) gives it a cool credibility too.
This is definitely one to recommend to fans of the Alex Rider books, and readers would also enjoy Defender of the Realm by Nick Ostler and Mark Huckerby.
Jake Atlas and the Tomb of the Emerald Snake Synopsis
When Jake's parents vanish, Jake and his sister team up with shady tomb robbers to find them in the Egyptian desert in this riveting page-turning adventure by award-winning author Rob Lloyd Jones. The Atlas family is in trouble: Jake hides an addiction to stealing; his twin sister, Pan, has to conceal her genius, for fear of bullies. The siblings can't stop fighting - with each other and with their parents, stuffy professors of Ancient History.
But Jake's and Pan's lives take a dramatic turn the day they discover the truth about their boring mum and dad. When the family go to Cairo on holiday, and Jake and Pan's parents mysteriously vanish, it's up to the twins to find them. They team up with shady tomb robbers, master high-tech gadgets and locate a lost tomb in this story of a family that finds itself in the deserts of Egypt.
Page-turning historical adventure in the deserts of Cairo, from the author of the acclaimed Wild Boy books. Bookseller
Author
About Rob Lloyd Jones
Rob Lloyd Jones never wanted to be a writer when he grew up. He wanted to be a fireman. Or a polar explorer. Or a deep-sea diver. And sometimes a pirate too. But, when it came down to it, he didn’t much like fire, or ice, or sharks, or even swords. So he decided to write about them instead. Since then, he’s written several books on subjects ranging from animals at war to the history of Islam. He loves it. But he still dreams about being a fireman.
