Great thriller which I could not put down. Brilliant characters, and twists and turns. Highly recommend to others!

The first in the Nora Kelly series - a solid thriller from Preston & Child. Archaeology, FBI, historians combine for a fast moving expedition in search of long lost, ancient secrets. A detailed and suspenseful read which is engaging throughout. Enjoyable.

Although Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have – separately and together – written a stacked shelf full of books, this is the first of their titles that I’ve tried. And it won’t be the last! Old Bones is an extremely enjoyable archaeological romp, a treasure hunt which turns nasty in the best possible way.

It’s a spin-off from the authors’ other series but the key characters stand well on their own, particularly Corrie Swanson, a rookie FBI agent eager to get her teeth into a real investigation instead of reviewing cold cases. Her opposite number, Nora, is an archaeologist who’s on the brink of exposing more than a mere historical mystery. This pair rub each other up the wrong way for much of the book, but it’s their developing relationship which keep the story grounded.

Similarly, the archaeological dig and the FBI investigation are kept credible with plenty of technical details and some ambiguously weird spookynatural stirrings. The result is an undemanding but entertaining page-turner, one that’s far more plausible than the typical global conspiracy, the type which go spiralling off into the realms of megalomaniac make-believe. I definitely enjoyed this more than the last Dan Brown effort and it’s rather more detailed and thoughtful than the average tomb-raiding romp.

The authors’ attention to historical detail certainly adds to this story. It delivers a chilling slice of American pioneer history – the doomed Donner party who set off west with high hopes, foundered in the mountains, and resorted to desperate measures to try to survive. Preston and Child successful weave their own intrigue around this background and the powerful landscape of the isolated Californian mountains.

A solid start to a new series, then, and a book which has inspired me to go look at the authors’ earlier thrillers…
8/10

It's the first book I read by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston and it was a very good reading experience.
They know how to write a book that will keep you hooked till the last page, full of twists and turns and with interesting characters.
I didn't read this book, I inhaled it and was fascinated by the historical background and the plot.
I will surely read other books by this authors and look forward to reading again about the characters of this book.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

I received a free copy of Old Bones from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have really enjoyed reading this book.
It had me hooked from the first few pages. This is a great start to what I believe will be an amazing series.

As soon as I started reading this story, it gripped me and pulled me in. The mystery surrounding the main characters did not let me put this book down.

This book is about hard work, ambition, adventure and justice.

I highly recommend you read this!

Is this your chance? Nora Kelly is excited about the new expedition that she is leading and she hopes that they can find the lost gold and find out what really happened to the families in 1846. The details are known about the families that were eaten by the other members of the party but there is still so much to learn. And as a top archaeologist finding the missing camp could hold a treasure trove of clues but the gold would be a good find for the institution as well. So her team sets out to find the camp, things go well until they start finding bodies. Nora knows that there is so much more to the story and she needs to find all the evidence to prove what really happened. But things start going wrong and Nora doesn't know who she can trust other than her own team someone wants the dig to fail but why? And now that there is an FBI agent looking into the murder she doesn't know what to believe and the agent really gets in her way. Agent Corinne Swanson has only ever wanted to be in the FBI but she feels like her boss won't give her a real case and now that she is looking into a case of someone killing a grave robber and a young missing woman and the case has just gotten wider as someone has been killed on Nora's dig , she knows that they all connected but she can't seem to find out why? Little does she know that all the cases are connected and that they will be in a race against to stop the killers from getting away with their treasure. Will they be able to work together to find out the truth before it is too late for them both? A good read. I was lucky enough to receive a copy via Netgalley & the publishing house in exchange for my honest review.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Heads of Zeus for an advance copy of Old Bones, the first novel to feature Dr Nora Kelly of the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute.

Nora is approached by Clive Benton with an interesting proposition. He has found Tamzene Donner’s diary which, in addition to listing the trials and starvation that led the group to cannibalism, identifies the location of the lost camp, a group of stragglers who got separated and set up their own camp, where such terrible events took place that there is no written record. In the meantime rookie FBI Agent Corrie Swanson has been given her first case, the murder of a grave robber.

I thoroughly enjoyed Old Bones which is a compulsive read based on historical events. According to the authors there is no lost camp but the Donner cannibalism part is true and it’s gruesome enough to be fascinating and a great base for an adventure story. The novel is split into two main narratives, Corrie’s investigation and Nora’s excavation in the Sierra mountains, alternating between them. Both are interesting but I found Corrie’s story more compelling, possibly because there is more mystery attached to it or because she is the better drawn character. I’m not sure what to think of the solution - I’d never have guessed it in a million years so that’s good but it has conspiracy theory stamped all over it so it’s perhaps on the shady side of plausible. Whatever, the journey to it is absorbing, interesting and compelling.

As I said Corrie Swanson is the best drawn character and she’s very likeable in her newness to the job, being both uncertain and feisty although not always at the right times. I can’t say I took fully to Nora Kelly although I recognised her from the few Agent Pendergast novels I have read. I don’t feel she was well developed as a character. I understand in a cameo appearance from the elusive Agent Pendergast that Corrie has also participated in his investigations (I obviously haven’t read those ones). I like the idea of a series which brings familiar, minor characters to the front.

Old Bones is a good read which I have no hesitation in recommending.