Frank H. (perryfran) reviewed on 6/18/2025 + 1268 more book reviews

This is the fifth book in the Nora Kelly/Corrie Swanson series by Preston & Child. Corrie is a young FBI agent who is assigned to a case where a skeleton is found of a woman who apparently walked into the desert of the New Mexico badlands, stripped off her clothing, and then died of heat stroke. Why would anyone do this? Was it a suicide or was something else behind it? Among her remains were two rare lightning stones which were used by the ancient Chaco people to summon their gods. Corrie brings in her friend Nora Kelly, an archaeologist, to help investigate. The victim had been in the desert for five years but then another body is found under the same circumstances so how are they related? Is it the work of a cult? The focus of the investigation leads to a former professor named Oskarbi who had researched and written a book on a group of Native Americans, the Gallina, who vanished prior to the arrival of Europeans in America. But how and why did they vanish and could their practices to summon evil spirits still be used by the followers of Oskarbi. But Oskarbi supposedly returned to Mexico 14 years ago and hadn't been heard from since. So can Corrie and Nora get to the bottom of the mystery?

I enjoyed this one as much as the previous novels in this series. The last hundred pages or so was really compelling leading to a rather bizarre ending. Nora's brother Skip also played a role in the novel and as usual gets in over his head when he goes treasure hunting for artifacts in Gallina Canyon with a rich collector. This book also provided some very interesting historical information on the ancient people of Chaco Canyon formerly called the Anasazi which means "ancient enemy" or "ancient stranger" in Navajo. The current more respectful term is Ancestral Puebloans. I'll be looking forward to reading the next book in this series when it comes out and I still need to catch up on Preston & Childs' Pendergast series. So much to read!

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