Book Review: Central Park Knight (Piers Knight, #2) by C.J. Henderson
Central Park Knight (Piers Knight, #2) by C.J. Henderson. © 2011 Tor. ISBN 9780765320841. Trade Paperback. Urban Fantasy. 350 pages. Source: finished review copy provided by the publishers.
Synopsis: Professor Piers Knight is the Brooklyn Museum’s very own Indiana Jones. His specialties include lost civilizations, arcane cultures, and more than a little bit of the history of magic and mysticism. What his contemporaries don’t know is that in addition to being a scholar of all these topics, he is also proficient in the uses of magical artifacts.
Knight receives a chilling message from Tian Lu, a former lover and an agent for the Chinese government. Years ago, they made a frightening discovery at an archeological dig when out of the depths rose… a living, fire-breathing dragon. Now, the dragons are waking from their slumber before their scheduled time. And one particularly diabolical dragon is set on eliminating the others and taking over the world.
As civilization plunges into panic, Knight, Lu, Knight’s seventeen-year-old techie intern George Rainert, and an untrustworthy dragon ally must use all their resources– magical and otherwise–to stop the destruction before it’s too late.
Review: I went into this book expecting a lot–after all the publisher’s blurb above equates Prof. Piers Knight with legendary Indiana Jones–but even after a brilliant and strong intro (which is only barely tied to the story), I was left sorely disappointed.
Piers felt boring and flat to me, definitely lacking charisma. Sure, he had some cool gadgets and the New York setting was great (as were the dragons), but Piers never really had me invested in his story and I found myself more interested in Piers’ intern George Rainert. C.J. Henderson has created some very interesting world-building, mixing the mythologies of several cultures to create his dragons, but it wasn’t enough to ever bring me back to this series which I feel needs some help. Cover art was gorgeous though. 2/5.
