Review Rating
With the October 2004 review, we began rating the books on the basis of one to four trowels;
one trowel= don’t bother, to four trowels= run right out to your local book store and buy the hard cover!
Golden Oldies - reviewing previously unreviewed books by previously reviewed “greatest hits” authors!
As we approach nearly twenty-five years of the MVAC reviews of archaeological fiction, I thought it would be fun to re-visit six of the authors whose works have been reviewed in the past. Three of these authors have sadly passed away since I first reviewed them (Margot Arnold, Lynn Hamilton, and Elizabeth Peters); two have “retired” their archaeologist protagonists, Gideon Oliver (Aaron Elkins), and Emma Fielding (Dana Cameron); and one, (Kate Ellis) continues to put DI Wesley Peterson and his friend, archaeologist Neil Watson, in harm’s way as solve contemporary crimes that have their roots in the distant past. While these authors have been reviewed previously, these books have not.
The Xibalba Murders (Golden Oldie) by Lyn Hamilton
Reviewed on: October 1, 2025
Berkeley Prime Crime Book: New York
1997 (pb)
Canadian-born Lyn Hamilton authored ten Lara McClintoch mysteries before she died of cancer at the young age of 65. Between 2001 and 2006, I reviewed five of her novels, one of which—The Celtic Riddle—I wrote while relaxing in the atmospheric surroundings of An Café Liteartha, a café/bookstore in the town of Dingle, County Kerry, Ireland. What follows is a review of the very first Lara McClintoch archaeology mysteries, in this, the third “throwback” review to mark twenty-five years of these essays.
The reader is introduced to Lara McClintoch at a decidedly low-point in her life: Her marriage to business partner Clive Swain has collapsed, she has sold her interest in her Toronto-based antiquities business, and returned, without much enthusiasm, to university and the study of the ancient Maya civilization of what is now Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and the Yucatan. But a call from Dr. Hernan Castillo Rivas rescues her from her doldrums when he requests her aid and expertise on a project of great importance. Castillo was the retired executive director of a small private museum in Merida, Mexico, was a close acquaintance of the Ortiz family, friends of Lara’s for more than twenty-five years. He had also served as the Mexican agent for Lara’s antiquities company back in Toronto. Without a clue as to the nature of Dr. Castillo’s “project,” Lara leaps at the opportunity to leave her problems behind, books an immediate flight to Merida, and checks into the Ortiz family’s ancestral home, which has been renovated into a comfortable residential inn, the Casa de las Buganvillas.
Upon her arrival, Dr. Castillo calls his regrets that their meeting at the inn must be postponed—with the ominous comment that “the plot thickens.” Lara is forced to cool her heels, waiting for Castillo’s reappearance. During that time, she is introduced to a number of individuals who will prove to be greatly instrumental in her stay in Merida. First, and most interesting to Lara in her present circumstances is the incredibly handsome and charismatic Jonathan Hamelin, Cambridge trained British archaeologist, and his partner, Lucas May, a local archaeologist assigned by Mexican authorities to work with Jonathan on a promising new site near Chichen Itza, the great Post-classic Mayan site less than two hours from Merida. Over drinks with Jonathan and Lucas May at the nearby Hotel Montserrat, she is introduced to the hotel’s owner and antiquities collector, Diego Maria Gomez Arias. Lara’s impression of Gomez is jaundiced by the rare Mayan antiquities Gomez has displayed in his hotel bar and she begins to fear the worst when her friend Dr. Castillo continues to be absent from the scene and she learns that Castillo and Gomez, once firm friends and collaborators, had a very public falling out over the display of antiquities in the Hotel Montserrat lounge.
Her worst fears are realized when the body of Dr. Castillo is found in his emeritus museum office, stabbed through the heart, and his body twisted into the caricature of the mythical Chac Mool that guards the Temple of the Warriors at Chichen Itza and was the receptacle of the still-beating hearts of sacrificed Mayans. Lara’s investigations are fraught with danger as she finds herself drawn into the shadowy world of revolutionary Mexican politics as well as the illicit trade in Mayan antiquities. Allies and enemies seem to be nearly indistinguishable as Lara literally finds herself journeying through the dark and watery realm of Xibalba, the underworld ruled by the Mayan gods of death.
Lyn Hamilton began her Lara McClintoch series with a wonderfully evocative tale that deftly works Mayan mythology into her contemporary murder mystery. It was a remarkable beginning to a too-short-lived series that kept on getting better with every one of its eleven volumes. Four trowels for The Xibalba Murders.
