Reviewed by Sarina
TITLE: The Curse of the Dragon God
SERIES: Fathom’s Five #3
AUTHOR: Geoffrey Knight
PUBLISHER: Cleis Press
LENGTH: 226 pages
RELEASE DATE: July 5, 2011
BLURB:
China. A land of ancient wonders. A history of tradition, triumph and tyranny. As it casts a shadow across the entire globe, this once forbidden country awakens as the dominant force in a new world economy.
Business empires will rise, deals will be made, lives will be lost as money changes hands, but one treasure will remain the most precious in all of China: a diamond known as the Eye of Fucanglong, the Dragon God of lost jewels and buried treasures. The diamond is flawless. It is priceless. It is cursed. And it is about to be stolen in the heist of the century.
Can Professor Fathom’s team of gay adventure-seekers find the diamond before this perfectly executed crime leads to a cataclysmic event of mass destruction?
From the towers of Hong Kong to the diamond mines of Shandong; from the streets of San Francisco to the deserts of Dubai to the male strip clubs of Beijing; from China’s mystical past, to the boardrooms and backrooms of a modern industrial giant, take the high road to China and join in the sizzling action and page-turning adventure of “The Curse of the Dragon God.”
REVIEW:
Much like the previous two books in the Fathom’s Five series, this one starts off with some sex and a good dose of action that grabs your attention right off the bat. Unlike the first two books, however, the focus of this book was less about the artifact stolen and more about revenge; the theme of greed and the overall desire for more wealth was the same though. While the plot of this book was completely different than I had expected, it was nice to see the focus on a more ‘modern’ problem rather than watching the main characters hunting down obscure references and clues to something lost/hidden ages ago and lost to history.
A lot of things happen in the first part of the book; Luca is still searching for answers to his past, one of the men ends up seriously injured and is down for the count and in the wake of the Professor’s kidnapping, the rest of the team are scrambling to catch up. There was still a ton of the action that I’ve come to expect in this series, as well as a decent amount of sex, but, for some reason, I just didn’t enjoy this story as much as I did the last two. The story itself had a lot going for it; you get to learn a little more about the Professor’s past, all of the men had their moments to shine throughout the book and, of course, the action scenes were entertaining and kept the plot moving along at a good pace. Despite what had been a winning combination for me in the last two books, this one just didn’t enthrall me as much. Part of that had to do with the fact that the Professor had been kidnapped…again. Seriously, the man has been grabbed in every book so far and by now it has gotten a little old as a plot device. I understand why it was integral to the plot in this case but with it happening in every book so far, it lost quite a bit of its intended punch. Something I was very happy to see, on the other hand, was the return of Sam and a bit of making up between him and Jake as it had bothered me the way they left off last time.
I did still like the book, though not as much as the previous volumes, and there are quite a few things up in the air right now from the beginning of the second book and the ending of this latest one. It totally plan to continue the series and it will be interesting to see where the author takes things with the options currently open and I’m hoping that I’ll get back into the groove of things with the next volume. If you like a great deal of action in your books I’d recommend giving this one a try but I would absolutely read the series in order so you don’t miss out on any of the connections between the characters and stories.
RATING: 
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