Product Description
Nora Kelly, a young archaeologist in Santa Fe, receives a letter written sixteen years ago, yet mysteriously mailed only recently. In it her father, long believed dead, hints at a fantastic discovery that will make him famous and rich---the lost city of an ancient civilization that suddenly vanished a thousand years ago. Now Nora is leading an expedition into a harsh, remote corner of Utah's canyon country. Searching for her father and his glory, Nora begins t unravel the greatest riddle of American archeology. but what she unearths will be the newest of horrors...
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 Fun stuff; I want more! ( kerikegley )
I've been meaning to try a Preston/Child book for some time now and finally got around to it! I have the first three books in the Pendergast series but didn't want to start that yet, so I opted for this stand-alone featuring archaeologist Nora Kelley, and although it's not technically part of the Pendergast series and he doesn't appear in this story, Nora does appear in at least one of the Pendergast books. I like those loose connections the authors maintain; reminds me of Stephen King.
As mentioned, Nora is an archaeologist and currently employed by the fictional Santa Fe Archaeological Institute in New Mexico, her specialty being ancient cultures of the Southwest. Nora's father, an archaeologist as well, disappeared sixteen years before in a system of remote caverns while hunting for the lost city of Quivira, a legendary Anasazi city of gold. As with other lost `gold cities', it's presumed by most that its existence is a myth; a tale passed down over the centuries, its purpose lost to time. Nora has largely put the pain of her father's disappearance behind her until some unknown source forwards an old, dog-eared envelope to her, and inside is a letter from her father, postmarked sixteen years prior, claiming that Quivira is indeed real and he has found it at last.
Nora embarks on a determined mission to retrace her father's last quest, using what clues she can glean from the letter and enlisting the help of the Institute and a few other friends with specific skills (high-tech satellite-assisted topographical mapping, for one) to find the ruin. Along for the ride are a few fellow professionals, including journalist Bill Smithback, who apparently figures in the first few Pendergast novels as well (Relic for sure, I know). Their journey into the treacherous, uncharted cavern country is detailed and fairly nail-biting, and what they find when they reach their destination is fascinating and not at all what any of them expected. The truth is much darker than anyone had imagined, but at the same time will constitute one of the most significant discoveries about the Anasazi and their mysterious collapse. There's a steep price to pay, however, when an inexplicable illness befalls one of their number, their horses are mutilated, and it becomes evident they're being stalked through the trails by something perhaps not entirely human.
It makes me wish I had studied archaeology! Man, what a cool job! Of course most archaeologists would probably disagree and say that it's mostly just digging around in the dirt looking for scraps, but hey, I bet it beats sitting behind this desk!
I enjoyed this tremendously and think the Preston/Child books are going to constitute a healthy chunk of my `lighter' reading this year, when I need breathers between the heavier lit and non-fic. It is SO refreshing to read something interesting, about fascinating subjects like archaeology, for instance, that can actually feature a lead female character who doesn't obsess endlessly about some man or other. I just can't take that garbage anymore and am starting to think Nathaniel Hawthorne was - and is still - right in his opinion of most female authors. (I hate to say that about my own gender, but GEEZ! There's more to life than The Endless Search for the Perfect Man, or The Endless Complaining About My Father / Husband / Boyfriend, or the Endless Pontificating about Anything and Everything to Do with the Male Gender and the Trodden-Upon Female, etc. Oy!)
Anyway, Preston and Child don't focus overmuch on character development, true, but that's fine because a) it's developed enough for this and b) that's not the primary focus of their stories anyway. These are just solid, intelligent adventure thrills. When it comes to light fiction and genre reading this is a welcome and refreshing change for me. I could live vicariously through the characters and as a bonus I feel like I learned a little something, too.
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 A Bonfire of a read ( llerrittra )
When Nora Kelly, assistant professor at the prestigious Santa Fe Archaeological Institute, receives a call from her former neighbor, reporting dim lights and large animals skulking around Rancho de las Cabrillas, Nora's old family ranch, she drives down to investigate. Her flashlight reveals chaos. The place is a mess. It's almost like someone searched it... Nora hears a noise downstairs. Thinking it's feral dogs, she stomps down the stairs, only to be attacked by two man-like creatures dressed in animal skins and smelling of flowers.
"Where is it," one rasps. "The letter, or we'll rip your head off."
It's only the blast of the neighbor's shotgun that saves Nora, and a very short time later, fleeing the creatures again, she stumbles on a letter beside the row of abandoned mailboxes out near the highway. It's from her dead father, written sixteen years ago, and in it he claims to have discovered an ancient Anasazi road that leads to the lost Aztec city of Quivira, Coronado's fabled city of gold. Could this be what the jaguar men were looking for?
Greatly excited, Nora petitions the institute for an expedition, only to be sharply rebuked and reminded that she's far behind in her work. If she hopes to be granted tenure, she has six months of hard desk work ahead of her. Detail work. The kind she hates.
Nora tells her brother Dave about the letter. He suggests an old prof, who now supervises the operation a JPL radar that can see through thirty feet of sand. Turned away by the prof, Nora tries an end run, allying with a fellow underling, assistant professor Peter Holroyd, who collects deadly plants and dreams of voyages of discovery. Attracted to Nora, shy and bumbling, Holroyd is convinced. All he has to do is re-task the system and collect some extra data. In return, Nora promises him a place in the expedition.
The radar scan is made, but they find no traces of an ancient road - that is, until Nora mentions that when the Anasazi closed their roads, they placed layers of brush on them and burnt it, creating a layer of carbon. A quick adjustment is all it takes. The new screen scans into place, and there it is, the road to Quivara.
Nora tells no one, until the next day she's summoned to the office of Institute president Ernest Goddard, where surprisingly he greets her very cordially. He induces her to reveal the discovery of the road, and before the visit ends she's been granted the backing of the Institute and a team of expert, even famous, archaeologists to work with her.
And so begins a harrowing and dangerous journey through some of the most difficult terrain in the world. Floods, storms, reptiles, and the sheer scale of the search make a fantastic setting for a blood-stirring adventure underscored by internecine conflict and team members too full of themselves and too eager for personal glory. Does the city exist? What lays in wait for the adventurers? Who are the wolf-men and why are they so viscious? The pace is never allowed to sag. Thunderhead reads like a burning house, and if the final scenes, which are of necessity concoctions, aren't quite as believeable as the rest, it's no biggie cause the scope of this story is off the chart. Great stuff.
Art Tirrell is the author of The Secret Ever Keeps
"...simply put, the best underwater scenes I've ever read." Meg Westley
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One of P&C's best ( nationm )
If you love archaeology and the wild west do yourself a favor and read this book. Packed to the brim with suspense and excitement I'd say this book falls in the top 3 of best novels by P&C.
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kinda late in reading thunderhead... ( tam92166 )
and i'm really glad i finally got around to reading it!
what a ride! i really enjoyed thunderhead!
it's a smart, chilling, scary, and thoughtful story, with a dash of humor tossed it!
highy recommended!
happy reading!
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The first of many for me by these authors... ( nurseboo )
I was searching for good, new (to me) authors, when I realized I had read all of James Rollins' books and was waiting for my "to be sent when published in paperback" copy of Rollins' The Judas Strain. I read the reviews on Amazon and decided Preston and Child offered potential to interest me. I was right in sampling one of their books. Thunderhead interested me because it was about archeology and the Southwest. I was not disappointed in the storyline or the protagonist. Some of the situations were a bit extreme and required acceptance of "literary leeway" for the authors, but the story moved fairly well and introduced interesting characters you could care about--or not.
It's a good summer read, and I will certainly purchase more books by them--both as co-authors and individually.
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