Boyd Morrison for the British Weekly Boyd Morrison presents a fast-paced thriller searching for Noah’s Ark **** 4 Stars

By Gabrielle Pantera

Boyd Morrison thriller The Ark searches for the supernatural power of Noah’s Ark

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 7/4/2010 - “I thought, if Indiana Jones can make archaeologists seem cool, why can’t I do the same for engineers?” says The Ark author Boyd Morrison. “While I’ve seen many thriller novels with heroes who were cops, spies, doctors, and lawyers, I hadn’t seen any with an engineer as the protagonist. So I created former army combat engineer Tyler Locke, who uses his skills in demolitions and bomb disposal to get out of the dangerous situations he faces in his adventures.”

The Ark is an action-adventure story that uncovers a dangerous secret within the remains of Noah’s Ark. A fun summer read. The Ark features great gadgets and is fast-paced reading. Guys will love this book. The book starts with Dilara and seems at first to be her story. However, it’s really Tyler’s book.

Dilara Kenner sees her mentor Sam die as he’s telling her he thinks he knows what happened to her father. Her father was searching for Noah’s Ark when he disappeared. Sam’s last words to her are, find Tyler Locke. Dilara sets out to do just that, even if it requires crash landing in the ocean. Dilara needs the help of Tyler and his co-worker Grant Westfield. They must solve the puzzle of where the lost ark is today.

“I’m an engineer by training, with a BS in mechanical engineering and a PhD in industrial engineering, and I’m a huge fan of thrillers,” says Morrison. “When I was looking for a story to build around Tyler, I saw a documentary about the search for Noah’s Ark. Being an engineer, I’m a skeptic. I wondered how a 450-foot-long wooden vessel could still be on the slopes of Mt. Ararat without having rotted away or been found after 6,000 years.”

“Then I realized that there might be another explanation,” says Morrison. “Maybe we’ve been purposefully deceived so that the Ark would remain hidden because it held a secret so terrible that it could wipe out the human race all over again. When I came up with what that secret was, I was off and running with the story.”

Morrison imagines in The Ark the true nature of Noah’s Ark and the Flood have remained hidden because the Bible was mistranslated.

“When I came up with that scenario, I thought it might be a little far fetched,” says Morrison. “But then I started researching different English translations of the Bible. I made a startling discovery.” In the story of Noah, Genesis 8:4, in the Douay-Rheims, the English translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible, the verse reads, “And the ark rested in the seventh month, the seven and twentieth day of the month, upon the mountains of Armenia.” However, in the King James Bible, translated from Hebrew, the same verse says it’s the mountains of Ararat.

“I thought, if two bibles could differ on basic facts, perhaps we’ve mistranslated some other words that could change the entire meaning of the Noah story in Genesis,” says Morrison. “Suddenly, my story didn’t seem so unbelievable.”

Morrison researched the story of Noah  by reading Noah’s Flood by Norman Cohn, Noah’s Flood by William Ryan and Walter Pitman, and Before The Flood by Ian Wilson. “I also read a fascinating book called Why Things Break by Mark Eberhart as a reference for one of my action scenes,” says Morrison.

Besides referencing books, Morrison made good use of the Internet.  He used Google Street View for planning a car chase in Phoenix. He also did research in person. “For a shootout on the Seattle monorail and Space Needle, I traced the exact steps my characters took for the scene. I also got to ride in a Tesla electric roadster, which is featured in that Phoenix car chase. I ran the elements of the scene past my test driver, and he verified that it could happen just like I described it.”

“Many readers have told me that The Ark is very cinematic, so they want to know when the movie will be out,” says Morrison. “We’re currently talking with movie studios. My film rights agent represents bestselling authors like Lee Child and James Rollins, so I know I’m in good hands. Because my hobby is acting, the only condition I’ve given my agent is that I get a speaking role in the film, preferably one of the bad guys. They’re always fun to play.”

“There have been some strange occurrences of life imitating art with the publication of The Ark,” says Morrison. “One of the early scenes in the book features Tyler Locke trying to prevent a massive oil rig off the coast of Newfoundland from being blown to pieces. About three weeks before the book was released, an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded and sank, causing one of the biggest spills in history, the exact same kind of disaster Tyler faces if he’s not successful. It was pure coincidence of course, but it was weird to see the scenario play out in real life.”

“An even stranger event happened about two weeks before publication of The Ark,” says Morrison. “An evangelical group from Hong Kong held a press conference to reveal their claim that they had found Noah’s Ark. Now, someone seems to find Noah’s Ark every five to ten years, but they’ve all turned out to be mistakes or hoaxes, so I’ll need to see a bit more independently-verified evidence.”

Morrison’s agent is Irene Goodman of the Irene Goodman Agency. Morrison found her at the Agent Fest during the Thrillerfest writers conference.

“I happened to sit at Irene’s table, and she went around to everyone seated there and asked for their pitch,” says Morrison. “Here’s the pitch I gave her: A relic from Noah’s Ark gives a religious fanatic and his followers a weapon that will let them recreate the effects of the biblical flood. A former combat engineer named Tyler Locke has seven days to find the Ark and the secret hidden inside before it’s used to wipe out civilization again.”

“As soon as I said “Noah’s Ark”, she asked to see the first three chapters,” says Morrison. “When I sent them, she was so excited about the story that she asked me to Fedex the entire manuscript to her, and three days later, she was my agent.”

“It was clear that this was not only a kick-ass thriller, but that Boyd had made an intelligent and calculated study of the genre,” says Goodman. “He knew exactly what he was doing. He began as a consummate professional, and has only become more so as the process continues.”

“The funny thing is that I first sent this book out during the post-Da Vinci era, when everyone was jaded about what they called ‘history mysteries’, so I wasn’t able to find a buyer,” says Goodman. “Sensing that the timing was just not right, we pulled it back and Boyd began work on something else. Then he came up with the ingenious idea to post the book on Amazon, where it became a Kindle bestseller. He and I were in close contact while the Amazon numbers climbed, and when I thought they were striking enough, I went back to publishers again.”

“This time we had the Amazon story, and the climate had changed enough so that people were more receptive to an archaeological thriller,” says Goodman. “These factors, plus the brilliant quality of the book itself, put it over the top. One thing people don’t know about Boyd is that he is a very accomplished comic actor in addition to being an ace thriller writer. I’m looking forward to seeing more of that razor sharp timing in his future books.”

“Irene submitted The Ark to Touchstone, and I was lucky to get Sulay as my acquiring editor,” says Morrison. Touchstone is an imprint of Simon and Schuster. Morrison’s editor is Sulay Hernandez.

“We work primarily through email,” says Morrison. “I send them a draft, and then Sulay sends back her notes on the manuscript. It’s up to me whether to take her suggested changes, but that’s usually a no-brainer because they’re spot on.”

While The Ark is an easy read, the hero is a little too perfect and without character development. The action keeps the book moving at a fast pace. Although the story is about the ark, there’s little about the ark for much of the book. The hair-raising problems that Dilara, Tyler and Grant encounter are the charm of the book.

Boyd Morrison currently lives in Seattle. He was born in Princeton, New Jersey. Morrison recently completed Rogue Wave, a standalone thriller releasing December 2010. He’s currently writing another Tyler Locke adventure, a sequel to The Ark. In the UK, The Ark will be released in August as The Noah’s Ark Quest.

Website: www.boydmorrison.com

The Ark: A Novel by Boyd Morrison

Hardcover: 432 pages,  Publisher: Touchstone; 1 edition (May 11, 2010)

Language: English  ISBN: 9781439181799