There was enough suspense in the story to keep me reading, and the intrigue involved in 19th-century paleontology was interesting. However, the character development was haphazard. The reader is given background information about Captain Dawkins and Lilian Prescott that is meant to add depth to their characters and enhance the import of their decisions. In the end, I found all the connections that the author attempted to forge to be weak and not memorable. I understood what past experiences each character was supposed to be struggling with, but the way they dealt with those experiences did not seem natural to me. Basically--a story with lots of potential but with no characters that the reader can really empathize with. ( )