Nora Kelly AND Corrie Swanson? Yes! While you don't have to have read their respective books (Thunderhead and Still Life with Crows were their firsts) it will only add more to your experience.
The doomed Donner party and the third legendary Lost Camp is central to the archeological dig that Nora heads up and the murder investigation Corrie is leading. The main mystery wasn't hard to crack, but this is as entertaining as the Pendergast series, and was educational as well. I look forward to more Nora Kelly books.

Maybe 2.5, just because Pendergast makes an appearance at the end.

Although I can never resist a Preston & Childs book, Old Bones takes a somewhat different path. This is the first book in a series featuring Norah Kelly, a character in several of the Agent Pendergast books.

from description:The first in the groundbreaking Nora Kelly series from #1 bestselling authors Preston & Child blends the legend of the Donner party with a riveting suspense tale, taking the dynamic duo's work to new heights.

I actually liked rookie Agent Corrine Swanson, who also has appeared in an earlier book, better than Norah--which was a little surprising.

So...the book was...a little slow and didn't engage me the way some of the previous books have. Special Agent Pendergast makes only a cameo appearance at the end, and I was disappointed with the lack of weirdness he usually brings to these novels. Because Pendergast IS the reason I gobble up these strange, silly, supernatural books!

Read in June.

NetGalley/Grand Central Publishing
Thriller? Aug. 20, 2019. Print length: 384 pages.

Old Bones is delightful with a touch of frustrating.

We’re going to talk frustrating first. The book is Pendergast-adjacent. It’s not a Pendergast book, though it features characters from his world. I won’t tell you if he ever does or doesn’t make a cameo in the book. I can just tell you that, if you’re a long time reader of the series, it kind of has the feel of an almost-Pendergast novel.

That being said, though, it’s actually very good and I do hope that the authors keep up with the Pendergast-adjacent world. Once I got used to it, I did like it. I loved our two main characters (two of my favorite from the canon in any case), found the mystery intriguing, and loved the adventure of it.

In the end, though I missed our tall, pale dude, I found myself fully on board and wanting another book.

Here’s hoping there are many to come!

*ARC via Net Galley

Thanks to Netgalley and Grand Central for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Preston & Child have done it again! I've been super excited about this spinoff to the Pendergast series since I read the news a few months ago. For those who don't know, I've been following Pendergast on his adventures for a good 15 years, and absolutely love the world and cast that Preston & Child have created. Of course, I was elated to find out that two of my favorite secondary cast members were not only making an appearance again, but were STARRING in a new spinoff that will be a SERIES of its own!

This one takes place out near the west coast in the infamous Donner Pass. Well, mostly. There are some scenes elsewhere, of course, but most of the action takes place in the creepy setting of a locale where some crazy events went down. You know, group of travelers headed west for a new life, get lost in the mountains, snowstorm cuts them off, starvation leads to cannibalism, the usual story, am I right? *shudders* Anywho, Nora Kelly, archaeologist extraordinaire, works for the Institute that gets sent to do a dig and help find out what happened at what is dubbed the "Lost Camp" - a separated group of the Donner party that the whole camp was lost to history. Shenanigans ensue, obviously. Meanwhile, Corrie Swanson - all grown up and employed by the FBI - finds herself working a case with some strange connections to the Donner Party, leading her in Nora's direction. The story comes to an explosive ending with some fun moments and some setup for future adventures.

Wherever the authors take these two, I'm there. I've got skin in the game!

Please note that you CAN read this without reading the Pendergast series, but not only will you have missed out on seriously character development for the two main characters, but you'll also spoil quite a few big details from the main series. I highly recommend you binge read the Pendergast series first - and don't forget to read Thunderhead in between Reliquary and Cabinet of Curiosities. You don't want to miss out on Nora's introductory novel!

When word landed that Nora Kelly, a character that made her solo debut in 1999’s Thunderhead and has since been a recurring character in several of the authors’ Pendergast novels, was to finally get a series centering her front and proper I was pretty damn enthused. Given the propensity for the authors to pack in plenty of scientific rigor, twisty mysteries, and loads of adventure, I figured this was going to be some tasty brain candy. Unfortunately, my high expectations just weren’t met and the title Old Bones just feels way too apt for this sluggish non-thriller.

Nora finds herself recruited by historian Clive Benton, a descendant of the infamous and doomed Donner Party, to search for The Lost Camp where many emigrants to California met their end to cannibalism and madness. While she and her team of archaeologists work with Benton to uncover these old remains, FBI rookie Agent Corrie Swanson is investigating a series of murders and desecrated graves that all point toward a common ancestor — one of the doomed pioneers from that ill-fated expedition west.

Fans of Preston & Child will recognize characters like Nora and Corrie, both of whom have played supporting roles to the popular Agent Pendergast over the course of several of his novels. Seeing them striking out on their own, however, isn’t as rewarding as it should be. Old Bones lacks the thrills and tension of prior Preston & Child books, and it creeps along at a slow but determined pace. Instead of thrills and high adventure, much of the book’s narrative relies too heavily on repetitious details.

The authors start out with a bang, setting up what should have been an interesting mystery about stolen skulls and the race to find a murderer. There’s a promising idea at the core of Old Bones, but it feels like neither Preston nor Child knew what to do with it. They spent a lot of time narratively spinning their wheels and treading water, going nowhere fast. The bulk of Nora’s side of the story involves uncovering a dig site, going back to camp for dinner and a ghost story, and recapping the details of the Donner Party, who killed who, and who survived. Corrie’s side of the story involves investigating a murder or a disappearance, making wild speculations, and being told by her supervisor to reign it in and that’s she making the same mistakes every other rookie has made. Rinse and repeat for damn near every chapter. Eventually, the two stories intertwine, but by the time some additional murders and a dash of conspiracy and paranoia get tossed into the mixed, it’s far too late to be of any real interest. The reveal of the book’s antagonist comes as no surprise at all, and the unwrapping of why such extremes were undertaken is too neatly resolved and with too little exploration, at that.

While I was delighted at the chance to see Nora taking the lead on a book of her own, for the first time since 1999, I felt supremely disappointed that both her and Corrie’s agency were severely undercut in the book’s denouement. Considering that much of Corrie’s story element involves dealing with local yokels and good old boys who think they know better than this little girl with a badge, it’s self-defeating that both her and Nora need a man to solve one of this book’s puzzles on their behalf. I won’t get into the details of it, but I will say it’s ultimately a disappointing and ham-fisted bit of fan service.

In fact, disappointing, ham-fisted fan service pretty well sums up Old Bones as a whole. Preston & Child have shown countless times that they know how to write complex and engaging thrillers. Sadly, Old Bones isn’t one of them. This one’s slow and creaky, content to tell you the same little factoids gleaned from Google over and over and over. While I do look forward to another expedition with Nora Kelly and Corrie Swanson, Old Bones should have been left buried.

FBI Agent Nora Kelly in her first case. Murder that leads to an archeological project of the Donner Party site. There is history here and as usual Preston and Child make things interesting. Of course there is a Pendergast sighting

"The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." (William Shakespeare)

And speaking of bones........

Let's bring out our expert. Dr. Nora Kelly is one archaeologist on a grand scale with impeccable credentials. She's based in Sante Fe and has had quite the experience unearthing bones and such from particular digs through the Sante Fe Archaeological Institute. But this time it's gonna be different from anything she's been associated with before. Very different.

Dr. Clive Benton, a head-turning California historian from Stanford University, stands in the doorway waiting to enter into the office of Dr. Jill Fugit. Dr. Fugit is Nora's boss. Both women lean in as Clive lays out a proposition for them. We, as readers, seem to be leaning in as well. Clive wishes for the institute to become involved in the search for The Lost Camp. And, oh by the way, this is on the trail of the Donner Party of 1846 who became lost on their trek out west in the Wasatch Mountains in Utah. A little sidebar of sorts: they resorted to cannabalism in their desperation with the majority of them not surviving.

Just as Dr. Fugit begins to refuse because of the cost to the institute, Clive ratchets up the ante. One of the men, Jacob Wolfinger, had been carrying quite the fortune in Liberty Head gold eagle coins which had never been found.......more than enough to supply the institute with one-third of the cash and the other two-thirds going to the state and the government. The deal is done and the die is cast.

If you've ever read a book in the long list of bestsellers from the highly talented Preston & Child, you know that this is going to be a worthy read. They hit the ground running with a murder occuring within the first few pages. We also will be introduced to Special Agent Corinne Swanson based out of Albuquerque who adds quite a bit of heft to this storyline filled with bone fragments, ghost stories, and unsavory characters. This is the first offering in the newly presented Nora Kelly Series. Our dynamic writing duo is on to something here. I can just feel it in my bones........

I received a copy of Old Bones through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Grand Central Publishing and to Preston & Child for the opportunity.

These authors never fail to disappoint!!!! This is their "new" series focusing on two characters we have met in previous books by these authors. Nora Kell ("Relic") and Corry Swanson ("Still Life with Crows"). Nora Kelly is approached to find the "Lost Camp" of the Donner Family by Clive Benton,a historian and descendant of one of the surviving families. They find the site and begin work on the site recovering bone fragments and artifacts which clearly tell a tale of starvation , death and cannibalism.
Corrie Swanson is a newly minted FBI Special Agent assigned to her first case, what appears to be a young woman's kidnapping and possible murder. Upon further research she finds that there have been other recent thefts and crimes involving the girl's family and that a ancestor of the girl was among the people thought to have died at the "Lost Camp".
What ensues is a finely crafted thriller with twists and turns and a special appearance by another of their famous characters. The book is delightful.

This is a spinoff from the popular Pendergast series. This introduction of a new series features Nora Kelly and Corrine Swanson both of whom we met several novels ago. Nora is now a world class archaeologist living and working in the southwest. Corrine (Corrie) has finished her FBI training and has been assigned to Albuquerque. We see Corrie tackle her first case which leads her to work with Nora, neither of whom knows the other’s connection to Pendergast.

As always with the Preston & Child’s books, there is a lot of history to be gleaned and history to be researched more fully. That’s one of the things I really like about these very well written books – the fact that they make me delve more deeply into the history covered.

Good plot although a bit implausible more often than not, good character development, good movement, good history. It is a most enjoyable read. I’ll look forward to more from these authors, as always and now more books featuring Nora and/or Corrie.

I received this ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This a great read, as usual. Nora from the Pendergast series is the main character, so there's a plus! She gets caught up in mystery surrounding the Donner Party. Love that Corrie also is in this series. It has a great plot and characters as well. It's a must read for Pendergast fans!

Preston & Child never fail to disappoint! In this first book of a new series, featuring Nora Kelly, things kick off to a great start with an expedition involving the history of the Donner Party & a hidden treasure. A fast paced thriller that you won't want to put down - once again they've given us another great series to look forward to!

Another great cerebral novel from these 2 Masters. Lots of well researched information.
Great plot and fun fun ending. Loved the appearance of you know who.
Highly recommend.

It’s a murder mystery wrapped up in an archelogical excavation surrounded by international intrigue. That’s how you might describe OLD BONES by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Childs. The book opens with two men meeting up at a darkened bench on the banks of the Seine in France which results in the exchange of an undisclosed object and then the murder of one of the men. It then abruptly moves to a house demolition where a different man breaks in and steals a diary just before demolition begins. Another abrupt shift takes the reader to an FBI field office where Corrie Swanson is a new field agent and, after months of studying cold cases finally receives her first active investigation.
As a reader, you know these things will eventually tie together, but for some time you don’t know how. The first connection is when the man with the diary approached Nora Kelly about mounting an archeological dig to search for the “Lost Camp” of a portion of the Donner Party. His promise to her is both one of archeological significance in terms of finding a previously unexplored site along with the possibility of a cache of gold coins reportedly having been carried by two of the inhabitants of the site.
The archeology dig is finally given the green light by the Inst itutes CEO when she is told about the gold and what it’s discovery could mean to the Institute. Even though they would not be allowed to keep the gold, finding it would definitely be a publicity coup for them. At the same time they are preparing to travel up into the mountains, the FBI rookie, Corrie, is connecting several grave robberies and a murder with a family who are decendents of a Donner Party family.
At the dig site, Nora uncovers the bones of all the inhabitants, including an eight year old girl who has been the subject of some more active ghost stories around the campfire. Just when it seems things are going like clockwork, one of the wranglers disappears with some of the bones, and things begin to unravel at the dig site.
Unable to connect her case to the dig site in a logical way, Corrie is ordered to return to her office and concentrate on the information she has instead of striving to make a connection. While she complies, things at the dig site turn upside down yet again and she is called to return. However, once again, she is unsuccessful in making a connection and her supervisor decides to turn the case over to a different office so Corrie can concentrate on her original case.
Because the book is more entertaining if everything unfolds as the reader is moving through the story, this review will end here. Suffice it to say there are still surprises to unfold and adventures to have for the characters in this story before the end is achieved. Overall, the different threads come together reasonably well as long as the reader can accept the premise of the international intrigue. The epilogue is particularly satisfying on several counts. It will be interesting to see where this series goes in future books.
Thank you to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an Advanced Read Digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

5 stars

When Santa Fe archeologist Dr. Nora Kelly is approached by historian Dr. Clive Benton to look for the Lost Camp of the ill-fated Donner Party, she is intrigued and goes with him to see her boss Dr. Jill Fugit. Clive is a direct descendant of the Breens who were also members of the party.

Reluctant at first, Clive tells the women that there is supposed to be a cache of 1,000 1846 uncirculated gold pieces in the camp somewhere that a member of the party had taken out of his bank. Clive tells Dr. Fugit that this could pay for the expedition. She gives her assent.

It has been seven years since Nora's husband Bill Smithfield died, but she is still suffering. She does, however, take a bit of an interest in Clive.

All kitted up with an archeological party of four and Clive and the roughnecks hired to be the guide, wranglers and cook, they head off into the sites where Clive's first-hand maps show that the camp might be.

All goes well for a bit and then things go badly wrong.

When newly-minted FBI Agent Corrie Swanson ( a protege of Agent Pendergast's as we learned in an earlier novel), learns that a member of the Lost Camp was named Parkin, she goes to the camp. She has been investigating a case in which the Parkin family – both alive and dead – have recently been decimated by killers and grave robbers.

Almost immediately Nora and Corrie – two strong-willed women – don't get along.

This is a great book. I've read quite a bit about the Donner party and this book fits nicely into the reality and near-mythology of the tragedy. As is the case with Lincoln and Child's novels, it is well written, plotted and researched. I did not see any typos or grammatical errors. Nora's character is great, while Corrie can be a little quick to anger at times. I liked the other people in the book, too – unfortunate in some ways for I even liked the killers. I really liked the archeological descriptions in the book. (I have a minor degree in archeology, so...) I was pleasantly surprised and delighted that Agent Pendergast had a cameo in the novel. This book has action, science, intrigue, deception and a big surprise near the end. All in all I am delighted to see Nora get her own series. (I hope.)

I want to thank NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for forwarding to me a copy of this absolutely wonderful book for me to read, enjoy and review.

In the sea of thrillers that flood bookstores, I’m always drawn to Preston and Child’s work. Old Bones is detailed in its horrifying historical narrative.

These authors spend time building their characters and dilemmas, whole also showing the deft ability to dispatch with other characters quickly.

At the end of this book I’m satisfied and yet again ready for Preston and Child’s next collaboration.

Any Pendergast fans out there? If so you'll probably recognize a couple of names in this book. You'll also recognize Preston & Child's writing and suspense and you'll be tapping your toe impatiently for the next in this new series. It started a little slow, I thought, but I'm thrilled I stayed with it.

I am a big fan of Preston & Child, and especially the Special Agent Pendergast series. Seeing that a new series was being introduced with characters from previous novels, I was all excited.

I must admit I found the beginning a little slow and tedious although the story line involving the fateful trip of the Donner Party and cannibalism did make for an interesting backdrop. Finding the Lost Camp of the Donner Party and supposedly stolen gold may seem to be the incentive for Nora Kelly and her archaeological crew to begin the excavation, but something more sinister raises its evil head and the ending makes the whole read worthwhile. There may be even a visit from my favorite Special Agent. Maybe?

This needs to be on your to- read list!

This is the first book in a new series but is actually a spinoff of the Pendergast books. The two main characters Nora Kelly and Corrie Swanson both appeared in those books as minor characters. It was great to see them jump to center stage in this one! I was aware of the story of the Donner party but it was nice to learn more and also how modern archaeologists going about excavating a dig. Throw in grave robbing, a possible ghost, and several murders to solve kept me turning the pages until the end. I am looking forward to more stories featuring these two strong characters!

Two mysteries at once. Historian Clint has come to archaeologist Nora to help him find his ancestors at the lost camp of the Donner Party, a group that perished snowbound in the mountains, but not before eating each other to stay alive. She goes to the institute who is willing to finance the expedition because of rumored gold buried there as well.
Newly minted FBI agent, Corrie, Pendergast’s charge, is given the job of finding out who is stealing bones from old coffins, and targeting only those with a certain bloodline.
The two mysteries become tied together, and it’s a page turning ride up to the end. It was interesting to learn about the latest in archaeology tools, and to meet back up with Nora and Corrie, both from previous novels. I highly recommend.

I read this in one day, totally enthralled. OLD BONES is the first in the new Nora Kelly series. Long-time fans of Preston and Child's Agent Pendergast Series will remember the feisty and strong-willed Nora as a museum curator and archaeologist. Now working in Santa Fe, Nora is approached by a historian who has discovered a long-lost diary by the wife of George Donner, of the tragic Donner Party. He persuades the Institute at which Nora is employed to search for the "Lost Camp," an offshoot of the main Donner Party which became lost and snowbound in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.


OLD BONES also stars Agent Pendergast's protege Corinne Swanson on her debut FBI investigation. Her clashes with the equally strong-willed Nora Kelly and the Institute"s Director, Dr. Jill Fugit, create a lot of fireworks. For history buffs, there's a plethora; and for thriller and mystery addicts, you'll stay riveted.