Badlands by
Douglas PrestonMy rating:
4 of 5 starsPossibly the most solidly Southwestern of this Preston/Child series so far. Dr. Nora Kelly & her Albuquerque FBI associate Corrie Swanson get pulled into a case which quickly accelerates from a few mysterious deaths in the New Mexico badlands to a full-blown cult investigation near Chaco Canyon. There are Ancestral Puebloan myths, an ancient massacre, potential skinwalkers, academia gone wrong . . . & all with two intelligent, capable female lead characters.
There is also a strong thread of supernatural possibility running through this thriller, which is pretty usual in the Preston/Child Pendergast series but less frequent in this one. I was delighted to find it, & hope future entries in this series continue to go just a touch beyond the mundane.
This book / audio includes an Authors' Note, which does a fine job of sorting out fact & fiction. Being a Southwestern archaeology fan, I wound up with a lot of questions by the end of the novel -- all of which were answered here.
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