The Lost Tomb

And Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder

By: Douglas Preston, David Grann - foreword

Narrated by: Will Collyer

Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Douglas Preston, the #1 bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God, presents jaw-dropping true stories of Egyptian burial chambers, prehistoric ruins, pirate treasure, bizarre crimes, and more…

What's it like to be the first to enter an Egyptian burial chamber that's been sealed for thousands of years? What horrifying secret was found among the prehistoric ruins of the American Southwest? Who really was the infamous the Monster of Florence?

Douglas Preston's journalistic explorations have taken him from the haunted country of Italy to the jungles of Honduras. He was granted exclusive journalistic access to the largest tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, broke the story of an extraordinary mass grave of animals killed by the asteroid impact that ended the Cretaceous period and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, and explored what lay hidden in the booby-trapped Money Pit on Oak Island. When he hasn't been co-authoring bestselling thrillers featuring FBI Agent Pendergast, Preston has been writing about some of the world’s strangest and most dramatic mysteries.

The Lost Tomb brings together an astonishing and compelling collection of true stories about buried treasure, enigmatic murders, lost tombs, bizarre crimes, and other fascinating tales of the past and present.

©2023 Douglas Preston (P)2023 Grand Central Publishing

Critic reviews

"Buffs of buried-treasure and long-ago true-crime tales will enjoy Preston’s expertly woven tales."—Kirkus

Facts and details

Douglas Preston continues to be one of my favorite writers due to his consummate curiosity and lack of fear. Great book. Thank you

Excellent

These true stories are well written. I couldn’t stop listening. I want more! I’m a fan of Douglas Preston. Now I’m a fan of his magazine articles.

great stories

The Lost Tomb: And Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder. Douglas Preston. Grand Central Publishing, 2023. 320 pages.

I have read most of Douglas Preston's collaborative novels written with Lincoln Child and a couple of his nonfiction works, particularly The Monster of Florence and The Lost City of the Monkey God, and I have enjoyed them. Preston is more than a novelist though; he is a journalist, often published in National Geographic, The New Yorker, Natural History, Smithsonian, and others. His deep interest in archaeology and history is evident in everything he writes. The Lost Tomb is a collection of 13 of his past articles, from 1989 forward. These are stories that have special meaning for Preston; they have inspired and shaped his novels over the years.

The stories are about mysteries that are familiar to many like Dyatlov Pass where a group of Soviet mountain climbers were mysteriously killed, the discovery of ancient Egypt's largest tomb complex in the Valley of the Kings, and the mysterious money pit of Oak Island. Several of the stories deal with ongoing archaeological debates about the peopling of the Americas. Exactly who were the First Americans and how and when did they arrive? Who were the Clovis and Folsom peoples and where did they come from? He also investigates major paleontological discoveries like Hell Creek Montana and the site of the asteroid crash that ended the Cretaceous Period and the Age of the Dinosaurs. There are even stories about two of the biggest crime events in recent Italian history, the "Monster of Florence" serial killer case in which Preston found himself inadvertently deeply involved and the murder for which American student Amanda Knox was prosecuted. Those stories leave the reader with serious doubts and questions about the Italian legal system.

Each and every story is fascinating, and each one is updated at the end. For Preston and Child fans, it's extra fun to get a glimpse of the "origin stories" of several of their novels. One can see direct lines from germination to fictionalization.

#histocratsbookshelf #histocratsread #histocratsbotd #douglaspreston #thelosttomb #archaeology

The Stories Behind Several of the Author's Books

This book is a collection of stories about the basis of articles the author wrote for various magazines. What really makes this book a treat is that these stories behind the articles are the basis of many of the author's wonderful books. All the actual stories are true and filled with drama, death, cover ups, cons and more. For me, the most heartbreaking was the author's nightmare experience with the Monster of Florence crime investigation that left the author unable to return to one of his favorite countries. Pick up the book of the same name for the full story. The book is great, narrator is so monotone, parts can get boring. Those sections I read.

Great book!

It's a really interesting set of true stories! Makes me want to check out his other nonfiction.

Fascinating subjects aside, this volume is about sciencing, finding provable truth and nothing less.

Truth is not hypothesis and to know something not necessarily to arrive at categorical truth nor deep knowledge not the ramifications of the reality one has grasped. Preston in my experience is one of the
best known

Non Fiction that reads like Fiction!

The way each case is represented, I could not help but soak up lots of information whether I wanted to or not! I wish my old teachers had the knack Doug Preston has for presenting informative facts!

Interesting

I loved it, a nonfiction book that reads like a fiction with fun stories told in a fascinating manner.

True stories of murder and archeology

The above title is accurate, although both subjects are not always present in each of the articles presented. I say articles and not stories because that is what we have here. Magazine articles written by the author that are not fiction, but cover a fascinating range of archeology, anthropology, and yes, even murder. Douglas Preston has lived an amazing life so far. We join him here as he investigates the Oak Island treasure pit, cannibal tribes in ancient America, ventures into newly opened chambers of an Egyptian tomb, contemplates the nature of Internet trolls and why they exist, and yes, he is even caught up in the investigation of a notorious serial killer in Italy. And this book doesn't even touch on his going on an expedition that discovered an ancient mesoamerican city in Central America (that's another book). These are the adventures of a endlessly curious mind who also has the gift of being an excellent writer.

Do ancient mysteries intrigue you? Do you enjoy hearing about true crime investigations? Are you fascinated by the past that we haven't quite discovered yet? If you said yes to any of these questions, then you will enjoy this book. I normally stick to fiction, but this was a fascinating listen that I could not put down.

a bit dry

It is not bad a little bit dry and slow though. I like that there are many stories.