The 13th Tablet (A Mina Osman Thriller) Paperback – October 2, 2012

I purchased this book because it had so many high ratings and the description seemed interesting. I have to say I was honestly surprised at the editorial mistakes I encountered as well as the style of writing. After reading it, I thought I paid way too much for this book. While it was longer than your average $0-$2.99 book, the content was not much better. There was repeated text- first as the character thinking out loud about something- but it was instead included in the translation of the ancient letter, and then again the same words repeated but this time as a break in the translation. I'm sure the latter was what the author intended but somehow let it slip through editing! The misspellings and missed punctuations were very distracting.There were far too many instances of "suddenly they" or "all of a sudden" within a paragraph to signify some major shift. It lacked flow and the scenes bounced around too frequently. What should have been major challenges to the characters were resolved within a paragraph with very little tension, or anything for that matter. (i.e. Jack rescuing his mother and sister from the boat. How easy was that??) The dialogue between the characters seemed forced and moody. They were supposed to have this great connection to each other but most of the time they seemed to be annoyed with one another.I also didn't realize the story was set in the past and meant to lead up to one of the worst natural disasters in recent history. (the tsunami). It is still fresh in the minds of many and I didn't love reading about it in a fiction story. In addition, the part about the woman survivor crying uncontrollably- because her baby was swept away in the flood!! It was so disturbing for 2 reasons- 1. I read this as I was holding my sleeping baby and I instantly put myself in her place and it was not a good thing and 2. these horrors really happened! I saw little point in including something like except for shock value.With that said, I did finish the book and the main characters had some depth to make them interesting.

An archaeologist, (lady) meets an engineer (male) in the dessert of Iraq. She is an American student working on her doctorate and teaching at the University in the midst of the ongoing war. He is trying to help the Iraqi villagers tap into a clean water supply. He is also a retired Special Forces office which comes in handy as the plot progresses. The Archaeologist is given a stone tablet found by one of her students which turns out to be authentic and very valuable. the rest of the book follows her adventures as several factions try to get the tablet away from her for their own nefarious purposes. Of course, our ex Special Forces guy manages to get involved and uses his skills to protect her.The book is interesting as it discusses biblical events and :prior archaeological findings. It has a lot of action as the story goes to Iraq to Israel, France,England and finally to Thailand. It certainly keeps one's attention during most of the book. My one big issue with the book is the ending. It's not that I didn't like the ending but it appeared as if the author just suddenly got tired of writing, so he finished up with one sentence and quit.

Love novels with biblical stories and information. I started this book a while back but only got into a couple of chapters before I had to put it down for reasons beyond my control. I thought I would have to start again from the beginning but after a few pages I was reunited with the adventure and could not but it down. Hope Alex Mitchell keeps up the good works.

I enjoy this book a lot. I love the biblical accounts and the mysteries involved in that fascinating subject. Especially as there is a lot we really don't know about the Bible and its records.

I really enjoyed this story and would like more by this author. Good character development, believable plot, enough action and the readers become involved in the story. It's not a work of fact; it's fiction and darned good fiction. The love story of Jack and MIna develops naturally. It's about a lost tablet that predicts natural disasters and the people who wish to have control of it.

This book was captivating. It held my attention with action, historical facts, and a need to know what happens next. I didn't like the end, I need to know what happened to a few of the characters. I don't know if there is a follow up book, hop@e there is and th a t the story continues. It left me hanging.

Loved the story found it realistic and had plenty of action. Hope there is a continuation as the end left me hanging on a few things....but all in all a good book...

I really enjoyed this book , for once it ended in an unexpected way . I still hope that I will read a new adventure of Mina and Jack .

Without giving away too much of the plot, "The 13th Tablet" is based around the discovery of an unknown tablet of mysterious significance. The book's heroine, Mina Osman, discovers the tablet through a happy accident (or a serendipitous event, if you prefer) which turns out to be not so happy after all. The discovery leads to an international chase for both the tablet and the truth, with a shocking climax.The book is a real page-turner. The story is exciting and fast-paced, and there is some very interesting historical background underlying the plot. It's a very enjoyable read, and both I and my mother found it fascinating and finished it quickly. We'll be looking forward to the next book in the promised trilogy.On the negative side, the book is possibly too fast-paced and doesn't take quite enough time to fully establish the characters. A bit more description would add some more colour to the narrative, and I would have liked more information on the historical background. It's there, and clearly a lot of research was done into the background subjects, but it takes second place to the action and I felt that it was certainly interesting enough to deserve more space. More information is available on the author's website, though.These criticisms do not detract from the overall enjoyability of the book. It has a great plot and lots of action, an interesting central character, and lots of drama. It's certainly worth a read if you like action stories with a sound historical background.

The author's academic background sets the tone of the plot and gives us an intelligent well-written thriller. The Iraq war is looked at from a different perspective making the reader aware of the tremendous loss to historical research caused by destruction and looting, into this is mixed the living conditions of many of the population. Mina is the archaeologist who is helping to track down lost artefacts to whom a strange clay tablet is passed. Trying to find the site of its excavation she is introduced to Jack who is helping villagers find a reliable water source. As it transpires, Jack is not all he seems, nor is the clay tablet. Once details of the strange secret tablet is leaked, interested parties start to follow Mina and some of her friends.What follows is a fast-paced search to decipher the cuneiform message, assess its potential impact and decide how the information should be used. Real-life events are woven into the story which causes a frisson of fear when the reader realises what is coming.

The "product description" online gives a good overview of the plot and so I will give my personal reflections to the story rather than offer the same outline again.The characters and plot are what I would expect from such a thriller and as a whole the book delivered an enjoyable read. I felt that the author delivered well on introducing some of the more detailed historical themes to the general reader eg aspects of historical Judaism in England and the Middle East that are not usually touched on by novels of this genre. He also allowed the characters to only solve the puzzle of the tablet after thought and exploration. I would however have liked to know more of this process and found it a little too general for my liking.Overall though I liked the book and given it only cost 59p I really had to download it.

Could not put it down. Obviously released the connection re. Christmas visit to Phuket but storyline was still gripping. Would have loved part two re. Oberon,s collection. :)

This is the first Alex Mitchell book I've read and quite liked it. For the most part all the story was "believable" - something I like in a thriller. The climax is known and remembered by all so perhaps out to have had a tad more detail. If I'm being critical then the "main villains" ought to have had more prominence and reason but that was not to be - prehaps that is left for the next book... Overall worth reading and would look out for other books by this author