Frank H. (perryfran) reviewed on 4/22/2021 + 1190 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

This was another very engaging page-turner from Preston & Child. It's the second book in the Nora Kelly/Corrie Swanson series although both Nora and Corrie have appeared in other Preston/Child novels in the past. I read the first in this series, Old Bones when it first came out a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it. This one was just as compelling and made me want to go back and read more of their books that I have missed.

In this one, a corpse is found in the cellar of a building in an old ghost town in New Mexico by a relic seeker. He is seen looting the place by the local sheriff resulting in a gunfight. Based on this, Corrie, the young FBI agent and protege of FBI agent Pendergast, is called in to ID the body and determine the cause of death. But this leads to a whole series of unforeseen events. Corrie persuades Nora Kelly to come to the site to excavate the body and she finds as part of the excavation a very valuable gold cross dating back to the 1600s and the Spanish conquerors of the Southwest. The cross is apparently part of a lost treasure that has remained a mystery and has been sought by many fortune seekers including the head of the nearby White Sands Missile Range. This and subsequent discoveries by Corrie and Nora lead to their endangerment by the ruthless treasure seekers. But is that the reason the relic seeker was at the ghost town? Is there something even more valuable hidden there?

This one really kept me turning the pages. Full of action and suspense as usual for Preston/Child. I have read a large portion of their books but I still need to finish reading the Pendergast series. I'll be looking forward to doing so, hopefully sooner than later.

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