This is the second Gibbins book I've read, following The Lost Tomb. As with that one, I liked the book generally, but with some reservations. First of all, the clumsy dialogue is still there, but this time primarily at the beginning. You still read detailed historical dialogue between two divers during a dive that a professor in a classroom wouldn't say. But once out of the water, the dialogue, while still stilted (just read it aloud and you'll see what I mean) is better than it was. The main problem is that people just don't say things that they know the listener already knows - for example a character might say "that's in the old teak chest on the Seaquest II at anchor in Malta" Well, when the person they're talking to knows what the chest is and where it is, and where the ship is, you'd never say that - you'd just say "that's in the chest". And you would never refer colloquially to a ship as the "II" to people who work on it. I just don't get why the author doesn't read the dialogue aloud and ask himself whether real people would say this. I understand exposition, but much of what is used as dialogue doesn't have to be - the reader can be told what the character thinks - he doesn't have to sound like an idiot reciting it to people that already know. Oddly, this fault is largely limited to the lead character, and not the others, and I think the characters would benefit from limiting the dialogue to what the character needs to convey, i.e. tell us what the character realizes he's seeing, they have him give his sidekicks the abbreviated version at the scene, then follow up with more on the ship or at the camp. The consistent scholarly recitation in the form of dialogue is a little sleep-inducing because you can't maintain the fiction that this is actually happening because if it were, people wouldn't be saying this.
The exposition style is still a problem as well, with Gibbins spending page after page after page on exposition of historical details and unfortunately slipping into what I was thrilled to actually read a character admit was "speculation upon speculation". The main plot of the book escaped me, possibly because the principal bad guy was always offstage, so the threat never really seemed real, and possibly because the lead character was making up an amazingly detailed story about something that happened to one or two Roman soldiers two thousand years ago based on practically nothing (that the flashbacks showed he was right actual undermine the reality). There are also problem with the writing in actions scenes - several times I read and reread scenes trying to figure out what was happening, and just couldn't make it out. In one major scene where a character confronts an old body, there are no nouns whatsoever telling you what he's looking at. There are references to rags and an outline that indicates a body, as well as placing an object in the grasp of what must be the body's hand - but no indication what that hand is - is it bone, mummified flesh, or just not there - and if so, why did you just tell us that it had been grasping an object of a certain shape? There is major action taking place and the reader is blindfolded. Gibbin does a good job describing things and places, but during action sometimes there just isn't enough information given.
All that having been said, both the dialogue and the exposition is better than in the last book, and the characters are noticeably better and more believable. The action is likewise more believable and easier to follow - still not perfect, but easier. I know I enjoyed the book more than the last one.
