Hunt at World's End -- Gabriel Hunt, as told to Nicholas Kaufmann

Reading this entry in the Gabriel Hunt series is a lot like reading an old Republic serial. (Yes, I know you can't read a serial.) It's almost all action, with a fistfight or gunfight in every chapter.

This time Hunt's after the Three Eyes of Teshub, which, when used in some way will create a weapon of mass destruction somehow devised by the Hittites thousands of years ago. The Eyes were scattered to three winds, so Hunt has to hunt them down. The action races from Borneo to the Mediterranean to the sands of the Kalahari while Hunt, the beautiful Joyce Wingard, and her uncle Daniel try to stay one step ahead of the evil Grissom, who wants to get the weapon and destroy the world.

The book has everything a good serial needs. Secret codes, ancient death cults, swords, bows and arrows, buried tombs, sunken tombs, mystical jewels of power, constant jeopardy, hairsbreadth escapes, betrayals, and a little romance. My favorite exchange occurs when Daniel finds it hard to believe he's been wounded by an arrow shot by a member of a millennia-old death-cult. "Is it always like this for you?" he asks Gabriel, who replies, "Sometimes the death cults are only centuries-old."

If you're looking for escape, this book will give it to you. Check it out.