Diablo Mesa

Starred review from January 10, 2022
Bestsellers Preston and Child go full X-Files in their excellent third thriller featuring archaeologist Nora Kelly and FBI agent Corrie Swanson (after 2021’s The Scorpion’s Tail). When Nora’s boss at the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute asks her to direct excavations at Roswell, N.Mex., the site of a supposed UFO crash in 1947, she quits, refusing to be part of a project that would make the institute a laughingstock and harm her career. The billionaire funding the project later persuades Nora to work for him directly, though she insists on first checking the accuracy of a recent aerial survey that detected evidence of human remains at the site. The subsequent discovery of two decades-old corpses, with bullet wounds in their skulls and burned-off features, involves Corrie, a skilled forensic anthropologist with a talent for facial reconstruction, and proves the precursor to more puzzles, including a baffling 1999 locked-room murder of a nuclear scientist and possible proof that what crashed at Roswell was not from Earth. The taut suspense and tight plotting that marked the authors’ earliest Pendergast novels are very much in evidence. Fans of kick-ass female leads will be delighted. Agent: Eric Simonoff, WME.

February 1, 2022
Archaeologist Nora Kelly and FBI agent Corrie Swanson team up for their third thriller (after Old Bones, 2019, and The Scorpion's Tale, 2021). A flamboyant billionaire asks the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute to dig into the alleged--and repeatedly debunked--UFO crash-landing at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. Much to her professional and personal consternation, Nora is assigned the job. Well, she doesn't find the bodies of aliens, but she does unearth two very human murder victims, their identifying features apparently erased deliberately. Can she and Agent Swanson discover the truth about these presumed murder victims before someone puts a permanent end to their investigation? This new novel from the authors of the Pendergast series is thoroughly entertaining. Preston and Child write energetically, propelling us through the story while celebrating its occasional implausibilities: don't take this all too seriously, they seem to be saying; it's just a bit of fun.

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June 1, 2022

Preston and Child's third "Nora Kelly & Corrie Swanson" mystery (following The Scorpion's Tail). Handsome billionaire Lucas Tappan believes that the remains of an alien spacecraft that landed on Earth in 1947 are hidden in the sands of New Mexico. He approaches the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute to excavate the site, and Nora, an archaeologist, is tasked with it. When Nora, who remains skeptical that her team will uncover a UFO, begins the dig, she unearths two shriveled corpses whose faces and fingerprints have been obliterated by acid. Nora notifies FBI agent Corrie Swanson, who takes the case. As Corrie and her mentor proceed with their investigation, more murders take place. The U.S. government and a secret military organization have been hiding a secret for 75 years and will kill anyone who gets too close to discovering what happened so many years ago. Cynthia Farrell does an excellent job narrating the story. She believably voices the different genders and characters' accents, especially the British and Hebrew ones. VERDICT Fans of the series will enjoy the tension, mystery, suspense, and romance the characters experience in this installment.--Ilka Gordon

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Starred review from January 1, 2022
Two desiccated corpses aren't the strangest discoveries made by archaeologists in this third entry of Preston and Child's unusual crime series. Nora Kelly is summoned to her boss's office at the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute and assigned to investigate the site where an unidentified aircraft, perhaps a UFO, supposedly crashed in 1947. She believes that claims of an alien space landing near Roswell are "wacko." But billionaire Lucas Tappan has provided a generous grant to the institute, and he specifically wants Nora to lead the expedition because of her reputation. She declines and is fired. So Tappan comes to her directly. But "I can't put digging up UFOs on my resume," she tells Skip, her less-skeptical brother. "It's too weird." Tappan wears her down and hires them both. Reluctantly she takes a team to the area, where they uncover a pair of corpses buried in New Mexico's high desert. They notify the police, and FBI agent Corrie Swanson takes on the case because they're on federal land. But the depression in the sand suggests that the vehicle--a flying saucer, maybe?--had struck the ground at a low angle and skipped repeatedly, like a flat rock across a pond. When they come to a possible final resting place, the archaeologists start digging. Just as they are about to make a shocking discovery, armed men stop them. Whatever is under a couple of meters of earth is a secret the government has closely guarded since the '40s, and these dudes demonstrate that they will kill intruders on the spot. Kelly and Swanson aren't friends, but they've worked well together ever since they debuted in Old Bones (2019), and they are smart, strong, and appealing protagonists. The story has tension, mystery, murder, and enough romance to give Kelly "a powerful glow, a whole-body tingle." Down-to-earth action tackles an otherworldly mystery in this devilishly plausible yarn.

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