The Mask of Atreus by A. J. Hartley

[meganbmoore]

After museum curator Deborah Miller receives a mysterious phone call, she finds the body of the museum’s proprietor in a secret room filled with Greek artifacts. After a series of threatening events, she flees to Greece in hopes of getting to the root of the problem. Much of the plot is comprised of a series of twists involving Greek archeology trivia, WWII secrets, Nazi plots, an exceptionally well-preserved corpse, and possibly priceless artifacts, with some interesting bits on race thrown in.

Largely, it’s a lot of fun, all of which is spoilery, but there’s one plotline that really irritated me.

So, after having it pointed out that Deborah has no social life and bad luck with men, when Calvin showed up and was interested in her, I immediately assumed that he, naturally, would end up a villain. Because in fiction, unless it’s a romance, when handsome men express an interest in plain, repressed career women, it’s only because they’re secretly the villain luring her in. And then I told myself that I was being too harsh and jumping to conclusions. And I almost convinced myself of that when Calvin was revealed to be a Neo Nazi villain who was disgusted by the thought of touching her because she’s Jewish. Heaven forbid she have sex with a cute guy without his being evil and trying to kill her! I actually thought it was an interesting twist when it was in The Net. But that was a few dozen near-identical twists ago.

But Deborah does a pretty good job of repeatedly saving herself just fine, so I almost forgave Hartley for that.