Badlands
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4.5 • 19 Ratings
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
The #1 New York Times bestselling authors Preston & Child return with a thrilling tale of "hair-raising fun" (Kirkus) in which archaeologist Nora Kelly and FBI Agent Corrie Swanson, while investigating bizarre deaths in the desert, awaken an ancient evil more terrifying than anything they’ve faced before.
In the New Mexico badlands, the skeleton of a woman is found—and the case is assigned to FBI Agent Corrie Swanson. The victim walked into the desert, shedding clothes as she went, and died in agony of heatstroke and thirst. Two rare artifacts are found clutched in her bony hands—lightning stones used by the ancient Chaco people to summon the gods.
Is it suicide or… sacrifice?
Agent Swanson brings in archaeologist Nora Kelly to investigate. When a second body is found—exactly like the other—the two realize the case runs deeper than they imagined. As Corrie and Nora pursue their investigation into remote canyons, haunted ruins, and long-lost rituals, they find themselves confronting a dark power that, disturbed from its long slumber, threatens to exact an unspeakable price.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Dark magic and strange doings lead archaeologist Nora Kelly into a shiver-inducing mystery. After a corpse is discovered in the middle of the unforgiving New Mexico desert, FBI investigator Corrie Swanson calls upon her old archaeologist colleague Nora Kelly for help. To make things even more mysterious, the long-dead body was found with ultrarare Native American artifacts believed to be linked to the spiritual realm. Things get even stranger when a second, similar casualty turns up. Soon our intrepid duo is neck deep in all kinds of creepiness, including spooky cultists, ancient spirits invoked by long-gone tribes, and the general terrors of the desert. Best-selling thriller authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are masterful at drawing us into both the majesty of the natural world surrounding Nora and Corrie and the cutting-edge technology that aids their investigation. Badlands is a wild ride that’ll scare you silly and rattle your brain right up until the last mysterious twist.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Why would two women, years apart, disrobe and burn themselves to death in the same New Mexican desert? That's the question Preston and Child pose for forensic anthropologist Nora Kelly in the crackling sequel to Dead Mountain. After the skeletal remains of high school science teacher Molly Vine are spotted by a drone, FBI agent Corrie Swanson is assigned to investigate. He finds that Vine apparently died five years earlier, after venturing into an area that the Navajo believed to be the home of skinwalkers. A spearpoint found under Vine's bones leads him to consult Kelly. The FBI canvasses the area and discovers the corpse of geological consultant Mandy Driver, leading Swanson and Kelly to theorize that the deaths might be connected to the Gallinas, an Indigenous tribe who were wiped out in the 13th century. Preston and Child once again use real history as the starting point for their hair-raising plot, which makes a series of tantalizing turns before culminating in an encounter with the supernatural. This is on a par with the best of the authors' Pendergast series.
