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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 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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southwest anasazi archeological adventure ( trikona4 )
This is an easy read with adequate background information to give you some insight to the mysteries of the Anasazi. Personal conflicts mixed with modern day Indiana Jonesish thrills make for a compelling read. 4.5 stars out of 5.
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