4.5 out of 5 stars
Contest is the eleventh book in the Dane Maddock Adventure series and (without looking) easily the twentieth book in this entire series (since Wood has multiple spin offs with Maddack and others). I believe it’s got to be close to the tenth book in this series that I’ve read from Wood. It was a slight change of pace from some of the other books but most similar to Loch (Dane and Bones where there to help out but it wasn’t a specific adventure with just them).
Contest tells the story of Dane and Bones’ adventure into the Mojave Desert trying to help launch an adventure race (unrelated here are some cool looking Adventure Races I found when googling them). They stumble upon a previously unknown network of caverns and also onto a set of secrets that someone would hope died with the dead.
Contest was one of those books that I didn’t see coming. It was as much about an old serial killer story as it was about the Indiana Jones like adventure. I love that Wood doesn’t shy away from the Indy references either from Bones and Maddock. They mention him numerous times and even talk about certain scenes, because obviously they are very similar to Indy when they are trying to find the next treasure.
The love-aspects that Wood sprinkles in are always interesting and add a nice layer to the already enjoyable stories. I won’t go into who or what happens, but it caused some moments of laughter that I didn’t expect.
Overall, this was another enjoyable Maddock Adventure narrated by the great Jeffrey Kafer. He voices the characters so well and really makes these stories.