Race for the Flash Stone is the second of a series. I liked the first one Shadows of the Stone Benders much more than expected and reviewed it last year). It did not seem like the type of book I would enjoy. But the write-up I saw on Netgalley was interesting. So I thought I would give it a try.

For those who are not familiar with Netgalley, it is a website for those who like to read an Advance Reading Copy (ARC) of books and are willing to share an opinion of the book. In my case, I write reviews.

This is from the review of book 1:

In the first book, an eccentric archaeologist dies in what seems to be an accident but on further examination looks suspicious to friends and family. Then those investigating the death are themselves in danger as it becomes clear that the archaeologist’s discovery of powerful stones made by an ancient advanced civilization led to his death.
The main characters were interesting and well-developed. The descriptions were good. The mystery was introduced in an interesting fashion and got me “hooked” quickly. Once I got further into the mystery I found the stone business a bit hard to accept but was willing to go along since it was a good story.

Race for the Flash Stone continues the story. Again the characters are well done. Some continue from the first book and some are new. Also as in the first of the series the stones from this ancient civilization play an important role. This requires a bit of suspending disbelief but again I was happy to do that from a good story. I enjoyed learning more about the civilization that made these stones. Along teh way there were many twist and turns and a good read.

Where I had a hard time was in remembering which stone did what. To make things even harder, some did more than one thing. The author did a good thing in providing a glossary explaining each stone and some other terminology from the ancient civilization. In the ARC (Kindle version), it was a bit clunky going back and forth. The finished product is supposed to be much better. Of course, it would be very simple in the physical book.

As the author points out in his introduction, this is a series and although you can jump right into the middle with this book, it is best to start with the first book.