Tag Archives: The Nora Kelly Series

Amy Caudill’s Reviews : Dead Mountain

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Dead Mountain by Douglas Preston

Dead Mountain (Nora Kelly, #4) by Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author), Lincoln Child

Amy Caudill‘s review

May 13, 2024

The fourth installment of The Nora Kelly Novels featuring secondary characters from the authors’ best known series, The Pendergast Novels, finds our intrepid heroines facing an investigation based on true-life adventures.  Nora Kelly, archeologist, and Corrie Swanson, junior FBI agent, find themselves examining some remains uncovered in a cave that may have ties to a fifteen year old unsolved case.

Fifteen years ago, a group of college students went missing in the Manzano Mountains, near an Air Force base, under mysterious circumstances.  Only some of the bodies were ever found, until now.  The evidence seems to indicate that the hikers went crazy, because some apparently left their shelter at night, in various states of dress, during a blizzard. 

Before the final curtain comes down, Nora and Corrie will deal with a military cover-up, a self- righteous victim’s group whose leader is a conspiracy nut, and the true villain of the so-called Manzano massacre, who has been hiding the truth all these years.

The two main characters have developed an uneasy friendship over the course of this series, based on joint adversity.  However, this volume shows Corrie growing the most as an individual and as an agent.  She has to adjust to a new mentor following the murder of her last in the previous book, and she’s finally taking a chance on love in the person of recurring character Sheriff Watts.  Overall, it’s nice to see the two women have lives outside of archeological digs, bureaucratic problems, and death-defying escapes from terror.

This book delivers on the promise that there’s going to be plenty of action, deep mysteries, and enough twists and turns to satisfy any discerning reader, as per usual with the names of Preston and Child on the cover.  I can’t wait to see where the next adventure takes the ladies, as well as the next installation of the main series, both due out this year.  I award this book five stars, and recommend it to readers of police procedurals, action thrillers, and fans of strong female characters.

Amy Caudill’s Reviews : The Scorpion’s Tail

Book Reviews, , ,
The Scorpion's Tail by Douglas Preston

The Scorpion’s Tail (Nora Kelly #2) by  Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author), Lincoln Child

Amy Caudill‘s review

When Corrie Swanson is given a seemingly routine field assignment by her boss at the Albuquerque field office of the FBI, no one expects that the shooting of a cop at a ghost town will lead to the uncovering of plots of conspiracy, murder, lost treasure, and a huge cover up on a military base. 

Corrie once again relies on the assistance of Nora Kelly to excavate a corpse found in High Lonesome, a relatively untouched ghost town, but one with recent signs of looting and of course, a shooting.  Both Corrie and Nora, the main protagonists in this series, are alumni of multiple novels in authors’ Preston and Child main series, the Agent Pendergast books.

In the last book of this series, Old Bones, Corrie and Nora did not exactly part on good terms, but they seem to respect each other’s abilities and cannot deny that on some levels they need each other’s help.  There is much made of their dynamic, these two who are not friends but connected through their sometime association with Pendergast, as reluctant partners, drawn into the investigation more and more despite pressures from Corrie’s bosses and status as a rookie and Nora’s delayed separate work and aspirations for a promotion to Chief of Archeology at the Santa Fe Archeological Institute.

When the victim is identified as the former owner of a ranch on land appropriated by the military for the first atomic test, and evidence suggests the test is actually what caused his death, the FBI, with Nora in tow, visit the Army base to ask uncomfortable questions of its commander, General McGurk, who apparently has familial ties to the area.

Who is involved in the looting and cover up?  Who is making sure that no witness survives, including trying to kill Nora and Corrie as they make covert trips back to High Lonesome, where only a part of the mystery will be solved.

This book has excellent pacing, going back and forth between multiple scenarios and points of view, as par for the writing team.  The reader is skillfully drawn into the story, without much clue as to where the next clue will appear and the next antagonist show his true colors.  In the end, the token appearance by Pendergast, (in only one short chapter near the conclusion,) will the final mystery be uncovered and the guilty receive their due punishment.

Another excellent novel from two of my favorite authors, that I award five stars for action, drama, strong female leads, all in a FBI procedural that contains so much more.  With the next novel, Diablo Mesa, already out, I’m sure I will be revisiting this universe very soon.