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    The Codex
    The Codex
    The Codex
    Audiobook (abridged)6 hours

    The Codex

    Written by Douglas Preston

    Narrated by Scott Sowers

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The bestselling coauthor of such page-turning thrillers as Relic and The Cabinet of Curiosities, Douglas Preston now spins an unforgettable tale of greed, adventure, and betrayal in The Codex.

    "Greetings from the dead," declares Maxwell Broadbent on the videotape he left behind after his mysterious disappearance. A notorious treasure hunter and tomb robber, Broadbent accumulated over a half a billion dollars' worth of priceless art, gems, and artifacts before vanishing---along with his entire collection---from his mansion in New Mexico.

    At first, robbery is suspected, but the truth proves far stranger: As a final challenge to his three sons, Broadbent has buried himself and his treasure somewhere in the world, hidden away like an ancient Egyptian pharaoh. If the sons wish to claim their fabulous inheritance, they must find their father's carefully concealed tomb.

    The race is on, but the three brothers are not the only ones competing for the treasure. This secret is so astounding it cannot be kept quiet for long. With half a billion dollars at stake, as well as an ancient Mayan codex that may hold a cure for cancer and other deadly diseases, others soon join the hunt---and some of them will stop at nothing to claim the grave goods.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateJan 1, 2004
    ISBN9781593973964
    The Codex
    Author

    Douglas Preston

    DOUGLAS PRESTON has published forty books of both nonfiction and fiction, of which over thirty have been New York Times bestsellers, a half-dozen reaching the #1 position. He is the co-author, with Lincoln Child, of the Pendergast series of thrillers. He also writes nonfiction pieces for the New Yorker Magazine. He worked as an editor at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and taught nonfiction writing at Princeton University. He is president emeritus of the Authors Guild and serves on the Advisory Board of the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe.

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    Reviews for The Codex

    3.5/5

    537 ratings25 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I wanted this book to be better. Really great premise - but not well executed and a bit predictable. It’s worth the read for a light action story - just not awesome.
    • 4/5
      was good enough but lots of gaps in audio and recording cuts off before the book even ends?
    • 3/5
      The characters are all a bit over the top and stereotypical and the storyline does not offer any big surprises or plot twists. But it's nicely tongue-in-cheek and doesn't take itself too seriously, so it's an average, but entertaining read. Not as suspenseful as the books he wrote together with Lee Child.
    • 5/5
      Great adventure story for a road trip in the spirit of Indiana Jones.
    • 3/5
      I'm a huge fan of the series of books co-authored by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. I also enjoyed Child's first solo novel, but Preston's The Codex left me wondering if Child is the heart of their writing duo (although Child's Utopia certainly had some plot holes).In The Codex, Maxwell Broadbent is a multi-millionaire who is dying of cancer. Instead of simply leaving his fortune to his three sons, who were never able to live up to his unreasonably high expectations, he decides to seal himself away in a tomb with all his belongings. He leaves them a message instructing them to come find him if they want to claim their inheritance, sending them on a perilous journey through the jungles of Honduras.It sounds really intriguing, but the entire book seemed to be one long description of boating and walking through the jungle. It was reminiscent of Child and Preston's Thunderhead, where a group of explorers take a perilous journey through the Southwestern deserts to find ancient ruins, but Thunderhead did a much better job of A) making the journey interesting, and B) devoting a large chunk of the book to what happened once they reached the ruins.I'd recommend it to Child and Preston fans, just for completeness's sake, but if you've never read them before, I definitely suggest starting with their first novel, Relic, instead. I won't write off Preston's solo novels yet, as I have his Tyrannosaur Canyon sitting on my bookshelf, and I'm hoping it's better than this one.
    • 3/5
      The Codex was not one of my favorite books by Preston. It wasn’t terrible, but it just never built up as one expects from Preston and Child. The storyline was not as well developed. It just seemed to amble along to its inevitable conclusion. The characters were vanilla and I didn’t care about any of them.

      This book is like a toasted cheese sandwich. A bit bland and uninspiring. If you want to read about adventure in a rain forest, you will probably find this book to your liking. But if you want a treat for dinner, you best get something better.
    • 3/5
      My problem is with the audio itself, it skips, stutters, and several cutouts of audio all-together. Not sure who pieced the audio together, but apparently they were in a rush and did no quality check whatsoever. This is not the first audiobook I have had this issue with from scribd, guess it might be time to just let the subscription go and stick with audible.
    • 4/5
      The Codex is a very good story from beginning to end. The family strife is very believable. The nasty father with many secrets is also believable. A pace was set and carried out throughout. It is a story that goes beyond family to high suspense. The book received four stars in this review and is highly recommended.
    • 2/5
      If there is chick lit this is dude lit. Fast paced adventure in the jungles of central america. Lots of menace. Lots of impossibilities to drive the plot on. Anyway I skimmed over bits but the story was intriquing enough to condinute reading to the end.
    • 5/5
      Max Broadbent, who is dying of cancer, leaves a videotape to his three sons announcing that he has buried himself and his half-billion dollar art and antiquities collection in a tomb in an undisclosed location. If the sons want their inheritance, they must track down the tomb. This begins a long treasure hunt through the jungles and rain forests of Honduras. The title refers to a codex, a Mayan compendium of plant pharmacology that becomes the most hotly contested object of the treasure hunt.

      The story line switches between the separate treasure hunting parties and the pharmaceutical company executive who desperately needs the codex to keep his company from going bankrupt. The action converges in a final showdown over the treasure.

      There are so many exotic natives, battles between man and beast, chases, narrow escapes, and ancient ruins that it resembles an Indiana Jones film. In fact, the story is perfectly suited to become a movie. The premise of this story might be far-fetched, but stay with it and you will be rewarded with a grand adventure, full of danger, treachery and surprises.
    • 2/5
      Not too bad for an adventure-type novel. I guiltily enjoyed it and might look at some of Preston's other books.
    • 4/5
      Not Preston's best book but still enjoyable.
    • 4/5
      Maxwell Broadbent disappears with half a billion dollars worth of art. His sons are called to the carpet by the police they summon after they think the house has been robbed until they find out that the "looter" is their own father.

      If you want to feel better about one of your parents, this book is an entertaining way to thank your lucky stars that Maxwell Broadbent is not your dad.

      This is also a book about trust, which turns notions of what I think about people a bit on their heads.

      The most interesting part to me was the Codex, a Mayan encyclopedia of all the plants, insects and animals in the rainforest and their medicinal properties. It was so fascinating to me that, while the bad guys wanted the art, money and jewels, the things that everyone really wanted was the Codex.
    • 4/5
      Maxwell Broadbent, wealthy "tomb raider" and collector of arts and antiquities, has discovered he is dying of cancer, and has decided to hide himself and his vast fortune of arts and treasures from the past in the tomb of an ancient civilization, challenging his three sons to earn their inheritance by finding his burial place. Among the treasures secreted away is a Mayan Codex, an ancient compendium of Mayan medicines and cures, of incalculable wealth to any pharmaceutical company. The three sons, long-estranged from their judgmental and disapproving father, eventually join their efforts to track down their father's final resting spot in the Honduran jungle, and must contend not only against the Central American jungle, but an unscrupulous and dangerous foe who has learned of the Codex, and will stop at nothing to possess it. A good and suspenseful summer read by one of my favorite practitioners of the suspense thriller genre.
    • 3/5
      The Codex starts off with a great premise. Billionaire Max Broadbent, who is dying of cancer, disappears and leaves a video for his three sons. In order to get their inheritance, which he packed away with him, they have to find him in a jungle in South America. Sounds great. And although the novel has some good points, there is much that detracts from it. One is believability, which this novel lacks in abundance. The other thing that thoroughly annoyed me to no end was the presence of the evil, diabolical, shadowy pharmaceutical company. This has become so tired and trite in novels and movies that it makes me physically ill when I come across it. I would hope for some more originality from Mr. Preston. At any rate, the novel has many twists and turns, which were not always believable.Carl Alves - author of Two For Eternity
    • 4/5
      The Codex was an enjoyable adventure of survival through the jungles of Honduras. The author, Douglas Preston, certainly put his characters through everything imaginable during their travels. Not many surprises as far as plot goes, and yet the climax was still pretty exciting. Not bad for something to listen to on your commute. SPOILER ALERT! Read no further if you want to remain free of any knowledge of the story. The main disappointment I had with The Codex was with the character of Sally. In an effort to create a character that was combative and strong, Preston made Sally stereotypically feminist beyond what I found believable, given that her character's role as an "ethno-pharmacologist." Through her work, she had to have encountered people of many cultures, and if she had not accepted the differences among them, she certainly would have had to acknowledge them. And yet she acted so insulted when the old man from the jungles of Honduras displayed views of women typical for his traditional culture. His comments were usually made in fun, but she always became terribly insulted. I found it a bit ridiculous. Yes, perhaps at 29, she's still young enough (yes, that's young!) to be a bit idealistic. But it came across more of an ignorance of where the man was coming from. I didn't find her hostility believable.
    • 3/5
      Too formulaic. There are some interesting facts and fascinating settings but everything else is so stereotipical. I found books written by Douglas Preston together with Lincoln Child to be much better - the author definitely benefits from Lincoln Child cooperation.
    • 5/5
      This is one of the best adventure books I have ever read. It is wonderful!! One of Preston's best!
    • 3/5
      Summary: Mayan jungle adventure: three brothers must search the world for their father's tomb, in which they will find their inheritance of his art collection. They're not the only ones looking, either.This little thriller depended hugely on the bizarre and wonderful characters it contained. The three brothers were particularly different: Philip - sartorially obsessed, sporting a briar pipe, and bristly and indignant when questioned; Vernon, the indecisive hippy; and Tom, the simple, stubborn, unflawed "good egg" and clever hero. There's an evil private investigator (particularly evil) but he's very clever. An insane jungle native becomes the focus of the last third of the novel and he is a brilliant creation and remarkably plausible.As usual for a novel of this type, there are frequent and numerous brushes with death, which I tend to skim over these days. I found this novel to be much more character driven than most of the novels of this type that I read in 2010 (e.g. Hunt For Atlantis, The Kremlin Device, The Sky is Falling, A Faithful Spy and The Charlemagne Pursuit)The Codex was very enjoyable and I would definitely recommend it to those who enjoy this sort of book.
    • 4/5
      three brothers, later turns into four brother hunt for there fathers treasure for an inheiritance it is fun reading
    • 3/5
      nothing really outstanding or special about this book, but it is a good read and a real page turner, you will enjoy reading it, but it wont be a hot conversation topic and you do soon forget about it.
    • 4/5
      As always these books (Preston & Child) start out quick and become page turners. As the ends approach they tend to slow down and end with a thud. This ending is just OK, but as usual I love the premise that the first 2/3's of the book works with.
    • 2/5
      I've never read an "action" story with so little action; nor have I ever read a "puzzle" story with so few (in fact, zero puzzles). I was very disappointed with The Codex which I thought would be an Indiana Jones-ish romp around the world. Instead it turned into a travelogue of why not to journey through the Honduran jungle for weeks at a time.
    • 4/5
      If you want a few hours of just sheer enjoyment & good old fashioned adventure (which I happen to really enjoy) then pick up a copy of this book and start reading. I had so much fun with this book!! now a brief plot summary:Three men appear at the gates of a grand house in New Mexico, each summoned there by letter from their father. They are Philip, Vernon & Tom Broadbent, their father Max Broadbent. When they ring the bell to be admitted, nothing happens. Worried about their father, who is dying of cancer, and has summoned them there ostensibly to discuss their inheritances, they break in through a window and discover that all of the beautiful treasures that have been "collected" by Broadbent are gone. The local police are called in, and as the detectives are going over the house, one of them finds a video tape with the words "watch me" on it. He summons the brothers together and they watch it. It turns out to be their father, who has left them a video message, saying that unlike those who say "you can't take it with you," he is doing just that...he is taking all of his valuables and taking them with him to die. He then challenges his sons to team up and find out where he is so that they may claim their inheritance. However, rather than even try to team up, they split apart, going back to their regular lives, disgusted at what their father has done. Philip, who sees himself as lofty and upper class, decides that he will go after the treasure by himself. He enlists the services of a PI who used to be his father's partner a long time ago, and the PI gets wind that Max had taken an airplane to Honduras. So it is in Honduras that Philip begins his search. Vernon is living with some weird cultish types (he is attracted to every kind of "teacher" and religious group) & also decides to go on the hunt for treasure, again on his own, with only his Teacher to accompany him. The teacher, of course, sees only $ signs as is all too thrilled to be going with Vernon. Tom, a vet, who lives in a little town in Colorado, has no desire to do any searching...he realized a long time ago that simple is best and that he is happy with the existence he has. However, that all changes one day when a woman comes looking for him on his horse which she stole. It seems that among the treasures Max has returned to the Honduras (which he stole from tombs there originally) is a Mayan Codex, filled with Mayan knowledge about the healing properties of the plants in the rainforests. Sally convinces Tom to put her in touch with his brothers, but they'd already left on their own expeditions. But something happens to make Tom change his mind: the two policemen who had originally investigated the Broadbent home "break-in" both died mysteriously in a car accident the day before they were planning to leave for a fishing trip in the Honduras. Tom realizes that anyone who could make such accidents happen to two cops could do the same for his brothers...so he and Sally take off to Honduras as well. And it is there that the adventures really start. However, of course there must be some twist, right? And a twist there is...it seems that the Codex is not only wanted by Sally but by others with much more to gain by its possession. It is a fun story with a lot of suspense & will keep you entertained for hours. It is not meant to be a work of great literature -- it is meant to be a work of fun & entertainment. I truly enjoyed this book & had a quiet day in which to read it nonstop. Now, why was the theme to Indiana Jones running through my head the whole time? Hmmmm.
    • 4/5
      This exciting book follows three brothers as they search for their father in the jungles of Central America.