May 20th, 2025
Home | Log in!

On Top Shelf
BLOOD MOONBLOOD MOON
Fresh Pick
TOUGH LUCK
TOUGH LUCK

New Books This Week

Reader Games


The books of May are here—fresh, fierce, and full of feels.

Slideshow image


Since your web browser does not support JavaScript, here is a non-JavaScript version of the image slideshow:

slideshow image
Wedding season includes searching for a missing bride�and a killer . . .


slideshow image
Sometimes the path forward begins with a step back.


slideshow image
One island. Three generations. A summer that changes everything.


slideshow image
A snapshot made them legends. What it didn�t show could tear them apart.


slideshow image
This life coach will give you a lift!


slideshow image
A twisty, "addictive," mystery about jealousy and bad intentions


slideshow image
Trapped by magic, haunted by muses�she must master the cards before they�re lost to darkness.


slideshow image
Masquerades, secrets, and a forbidden romance stitched into every seam.


slideshow image
A vanished manuscript. A murdered expert. A castle full of secrets�and one sharp-witted sleuth.


Since your web browser does not support JavaScript, here is a non-JavaScript version of the image slideshow:

slideshow image
Two warrior angels. First friends, now lovers. Their future? A WILD UNKNOWN.


Dead Mountain

Dead Mountain, September 2023
Nora Kelly
by Lincoln Child, Douglas Preston

Grand Central Publishing
Featuring: Corrie Swanson; Nora Kelly
368 pages
ISBN: 1538736829
EAN: 9781538736821
Kindle: B0BP2GNH6K
Hardcover / e-Book / audiobook
Add to Wish List


Purchase



"Riveting 4th installment in Preston & Child's newest series..."

Fresh Fiction Review

Dead Mountain
Lincoln Child, Douglas Preston

Reviewed by Ruth Castleberry
Posted August 22, 2023

Mystery | Thriller Crime

FBI Agent Corinne Swanson and consulting archaeologist Nora Kelly stumble upon a puzzling, partially unsolved mystery when two frat brothers seek refuge in a cave during a snowstorm and find two bodies. DEAD MOUNTAIN is the fourth Nora Kelly adventure from Doug Preston and Lincoln Child. Picking up the relationship from Diablo Mesa, Corinne is assigned to a new mentor, Clay Sharp, and they are dispatched to check out the bodies to determine if the cave is a Native American burial site or something more recent. When Clay and Corinne decide the bodies are prehistoric, Corinne suggests contacting Nora Kelly, Chief of Archeology, Santa Fe Archaeological Institute, to document the site and confirm the bones are prehistoric so they can notify NAGPRA-designated tribal custodian of the remains.

As Nora works in the cave, she moves to the back and finds two recent bodies. Now Clay mentions the Dead Mountain mystery from 2008. Nine hikers backpacked into the Manzano Mountains. When they did not return, search parties found their campsite and six of the group dead. The remaining three were never found--until now. With the two finally identified, only one camper is still missing, and Corrine seems determined to discover what happened to him.

The cave is near Kirtland Air Force Base, where nuclear weapons are stored. Clay tells Corinne that the hikers’ clothes tested positive for radioactive contamination, but that information was quickly classified and not part of the files. Corrie discovers that the last camper’s father had access to the base’s underground sanctuary and decides to focus the search for his body on the base’s storage facilities. While the FBI continues searching for answers to what happened, Nora challenges the local sheriff for his political posturing about the tribe’s rights to reclaim the prehistoric bodies and relocate them to sacred land.

Preston and Child conceive a plausible yet extreme mystery around the campers’ fate in the Manzano Mountains. And following the relationship between Nora and Corinne establishes an intense suspense-driven story that makes reading it an adventure. DEAD MOUNTAIN is not for the faint of heart and teases readers with a taste of what’s to come.

Learn more about Dead Mountain

SUMMARY

#1 New York Times bestselling authors Preston & Child return in the latest installment of the bestselling series featuring renowned archaeologist Nora Kelly and FBI Agent Corrie Swanson, who investigate a mystery so enigmatic it may have no solution.
 
In 2008, nine mountaineers failed to return from a winter backpacking trip in the New Mexico mountains. At their final campsite, searchers found a bizarre scene: something had appeared at the door of their tent so terrifying that it impelled them to slash their way out and flee barefoot to certain death in a blizzard. Despite a diligent search, only six bodies were found, two violently crushed and inexplicably missing their eyes. The case, given the code name “Dead Mountain” by the FBI, was never solved.

Now, two more bodies from the lost expedition are unexpectedly discovered in a cave, one a grisly suicide. Young FBI Agent Corrie Swanson teams up with archaeologist Nora Kelly to investigate what really happened on that fateful trip fifteen years ago—and to find the ninth victim. But their search awakens a long-slumbering evil, which pursues Corrie and Nora with a vengeance, determined to prevent the final missing corpse from ever coming to light.


What do you think about this review?

Comments

No comments posted.

Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!

 

 

 

© 2003-2025 off-the-edge.net  all rights reserved Privacy Policy