Books like Nicholas Flamel's First Codex: The Alchemyst, The Magician, The Sorceress

Scott has absolutely no sense of pacing. There are no ups and downs, no lulls, no breathers. Its pedal floored all the way for three straight books with each chapter introducing yet more escalated bad guys, escalated danger, and escalated collateral damage...all of which takes place in just a few days time. Pacing wise the book is pretty juvenille...its reminds me of the over excited announcer of Monster Truck Rally commercials SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY...ALL ACTION...ALL THE TIME!!!!So why 4 stars? Based on the quality of the narrative 3 would be more appropriate, maybe even 2. But the redeeming feature is the world is pretty interesting. Sure, it would appear to be a standard supernatural in the modern world urban fantasy trope...that's been done 100 times and usually poorly. But in this case, the supernatural elements are not just pasted on Vampires! or poorly modeled "tourist" quality Greek Myth. The supernatural denizens are actually drawn from global myths and represent a cross section that cuts far deeper than most. Many of the myths that were drawn from I had to look up...and was surprised to learn that they are, in fact, real characters and their qualities in the book are reasonable reflections of their mythological character.So there's some pretty decent scholarship underlying the story. Additionally the plot is actually pretty interesting. Sure it relies heavily on the over done "prophesized teenagers save the world" trope, but the villains are far more interesting (and the villains' bosses far more intimidating and mysterious) than say...Voldemort.So high marks for the scholarship, moderately high marks for the plot...but man...Scott really needs to learn that after a climax comes denouement...not another climax (or 3).