The Lost Tomb

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

By: Douglas Preston, David Grann - foreword

Narrated by: Will Collyer

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

Excellent dive

I liked getting a glimpse of the work that goes into unfolding the past. Douglas Preston is a gripping story teller, even of things traditionally thought dry and foxxed. Give it a shot - you'll be glad you did.

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.

Tales of Mystery in History

This book will delight any nerds into true crime, history, anthropology, paleontology, and just about anyone who likes mysteries. It’s great and you will not regret listening. It is a compilation of works that become interconnected throughout each section/ chapter.

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

Fun

Great listen and easy to follow while being productive around home. I found myself often stopping and being intrigued by the story being told.

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!

fascinating!

fascinating and so well written, I learned much and enjoyed the book very much, I highly reccomend this to anyone interested in history and archeology

Updates of prior works, lessons in history

Disliked it was a rehash of prior articles but not a book. More than offset by- historical and amazing stories , takes anyone into a path of humans and history. Wonderfull

Not worth the money. He talks about how they take a real story and I got bored

Dislike I want a fiction and he get how they come up with their book

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.

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