Frank H. (perryfran) reviewed on 10/1/2019 + 1178 more book reviews

Another page-turner from Preston & Child. I have read many of their prior novels and I always enjoy them including several in the Pendergast series. I was drawn to this novel primarily because it is about the ill-fated Donner Party who were stranded in the Sierra Mountains in 1846 and resorted to cannibalism to survive. This piece of history has always piqued my interest ever since I first learned about it as part of Utah history when I was in 7th grade. The Donner Party crossed the Utah salt desert prior to the settlement of the Salt Lake Valley by the Mormons. The novel also features Nora Kelly, the archaeologist who was first introduced in Thunderhead, one of my favorite Preston/Child novels. In Old Bones, Nora and the archaeological institute she works for, are enticed to look for a lost camp of the Donner Party based on a journal written by Mrs. Donner that a historian, Clive Benton, has located that includes a description of the location of the lost camp. But then there is another mystery surrounding this; the remains of some of the ancestors of one of the Donner Party have been stolen from their graves from various locations around the world. Corrie Swanson, a young FBI agent is investigating this and is trying to find a connection to the Donner excavation led by Nora. Corrie is a protege of Pendergast and has helped him on other cases in the past.

I really enjoyed this one and it kept me turning the pages up until the end. There was also some good twists that I didn't see coming. I understand that this is the first in a series that will feature Nora and Corrie and I will be looking forward to reading more of these. I also need to finish reading the Pendergast series. I think I have read the first seven books but some of what happened in the later books relate to what happened in Old Bones so I'm looking forward to continuing the series.

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