Archeological Mystery Thrillers

The ingenious plot of this thriller is full of twists and turns, excitement and adventure, archaeology and technology. Listeners will meet fascinating characters they'll never forget: a high-tech billionaire, a quick-witted professor, his beautiful young student, and her still-tough grandfather, a retired Marine gunny sergeant. Cornell University professor Robert Johnson and his star PhD student are hired by a billionaire entrepreneur to solve a 500-year-old archaeology mystery in northern Peru. But first, they will have to survive corporate skullduggery and drug lord thuggery.

First they tried to kill him. Then they took his daughter . . . Anthropologist Simon Dracup knows that his only hope of finding her alive lies within the pages of his grandfather's diary, the record of a near century old expedition to Mount Ararat, legendary resting place of the great Ark of Noah. When the CIA pays him a visit Dracup learns that something was found on the Ark. Something priceless. Now its owners have taken it back, but they want revenge and Dracup is their prime target . . .

Gus Voigt has been many things. A weapons smuggler, a barroom brawler, and the enforcer for a biker gang. After some bad choices, he finds himself hiding out in South America, scraping by as the captain of a river boat on the Amazon. There, he struggles to make ends meet while trying to take care of his wayward nephew, Jesse. Gus’ fortunes suddenly change when a mysterious Hollywood producer approaches him with a film crew and a map to Paititi, an ancient lost city of gold.

Professional treasure hunter EDEN BLACK is no stranger to action. After all, the artifacts she spends her life returning to their rightful owners aren’t always easy to access. When Eden’s father dies in a plane crash, her life’s turned upside down. Grief turns to fear when she learns that it wasn't an accident. Everyone involved in an archaeological dig twenty years ago has met with a similar untimely end. Everyone that is, but Eden who was ten at the time.

Twenty miles east of Devils Tower, in the sleepy town of Cascade, Wyoming, a cryptic letter is found. It mentions a "wealth of a nation", and reads as nothing more than fanciful fiction, except that its author was one of the most influential men in American history, famed explorer and former President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. The letter also references the Seven Sisters of Native American folklore. The correlation between the two subjects is unknown, even to Chatan, the message’s discoverer, a young man with Lakota ancestry.

In a tunnel under the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Michael, a teacher of investigative journalism, has to confront a powerful opponent. Will he succeed in his race against time? Will he prevail in his attempt to stop Armageddon? To succeed in his mission, Michael must delve into ideas, measurements, and calculations written 300 years earlier by Sir Isaac Newton.

Amid a revolution, archaeologist Christopher Jordan and ancient manuscript expert Kathryn Ferguson travel to Syria in search of the original scroll of Marks' Gospel. Paralleling their quest is the story of the evangelist's escape with the scroll from the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., his struggles to complete the manuscript, and his journeys and efforts with the daughter of Peter the Apostle to protect and save it for the ages. For both couples, time is running out and enemies are closing in.

The tomb of China’s First Emperor, guarded by an underground army of terra-cotta warriors, has remained sealed for more than 2,000 years. Though it’s regarded as one of the greatest archaeological sites in the world, the Chinese government won’t allow anyone to open it. Why? That question is at the heart of a dilemma faced by former Justice Department operative Cotton Malone, whose life is shattered when he receives an anonymous note carrying an unfamiliar Web address.

Unverified reports tell of a hidden treasure trove deep beneath the Owl Mountains in Poland. Many have tried, but all have failed to locate the legendary Nazi gold train. Jack Reilly mourns the loss of his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, and an esteemed historian. In memory of her, the retired Delta operator tours the place of her imprisonment, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, site of the infamous Nazi concentration camp.

Recruited by the United Nations, Alex and Sam set off on their most dangerous mission yet. Their task - find and retrieve the last remaining fossil evidence that may link humanity with mitochondrial Eve from a death-defying underground cave system in war-torn South Africa! But the fearless team soon come face to face with the perils of a nation in conflict against each other.

In one ancient variation on the myth of Pandora’s box, there were two jars, one for Pandora and one for her sister, Anesidora. One contained all the blessings of the gods; the other all the world’s curses. Now, in a subterranean city in Northern Iraq, archaeologist Sophie Durand has discovered a secret chamber covered in writing that confirms that version of the tale - a chamber which contains a single jar. “Weird shit” expert Ben Walker joins Sophie’s team just as the mystery deepens and grows ugly.

Sean Wyatt just wants bullets to stop flying his way. He did his time as a government agent and as an artifact recovery specialist for the IAA. Now he just wants some peace and quiet, but when he rescues a friend from being executed in the mountains of Tennessee, Sean and his sidekick Tommy Shultz are thrown into a high octane game of cat and mouse with a wealthy Frenchman who will stop at nothing to get his next prize.

World-renowned archaeologist Nina Wilde and her husband, former SAS soldier Eddie Chase, now lead a quiet life—the only real danger posed by their rebellious teenage daughter. Until, on a visit to a newly discovered temple, they're suddenly engulfed in a deadly hunt for an ancient weapon which threatens the entire globe. From the bustling streets of Mexico City to the mountainous jungles of Guatemala, Nina and Eddie—with daughter Gracie in tow—are the only ones who can prevent an apocalyptic evil seizing control of an unstoppable power.

Sean Wyatt quit working for the United States government years ago but after recent events, he's come to realize his particular set of skills might still be needed to keep the world a little safer. With an evil mastermind behind a twisted plot, Sean is on the clock with less than 72 hours to find a Nazi device known as die glocke [the bell] before a for-profit terrorist cell known as The Black Ring executes an innocent woman.

This audiobook is a three-in-one collection of Cornell Archaeology Professor Rob Johnson in the archaeological mystery thrillers Inca's Death Cave, Mongolia and the Golden Eagle, and The Zulu Curse. Adventure, archaeology, technology, and mystery mix to form a breathtaking action-packed tale.

Some 2,000 years ago, Buddha’s remains were gathered in several golden urns and shared amongst his followers across the world. But, when one urn goes missing from a mountain shrine in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian government enlist the aid of formidable artifact salvagers Alex Hunt and Sam Quinn to hunt it down and return it to its holy place in the temple shrine.

You can hide Manuscripts for centuries but not forever. Someone got murdered and someone has stolen the newly discovered lost manuscripts from Leonardo da Vinci. Arcadia found them back, only to lose them again through betrayal of a man she once loved. Murder happens again before she recovers the books and takes the first flight out which is to Australia and then to Spain where she is chased first by killers and then by the police who is accusing her having shot a police man.

In Israel, famed archaeologist Christopher Jordan and ancient manuscript expert Kathryn Ferguson team up again to save two recently discovered jars and the early Christian documents they are believed to contain. Complicating their effort are an American fundamentalist student who discovered the jars and fanatically believes they should be in Christian hands, and a Hezbollah kidnapping attempt of Chris and Kate in reprisal for their earlier heisting of Mark's original gospel from Syria. Israeli and Palestinian antiquity authorities are also in the mix for claiming ownership of the jars.

Archaeologist Lisa Donahue travels to Israel to arrange a loan of artifacts for her Philadelphia museum. Even before she finds a scrap of ancient manuscript in a ceramic jar, she is the subject of intense interest from strangers. A Lebanese computer salesman follows her to her Jerusalem hotel where someone has delivered a mysterious message for her. Then she runs into an old boyfriend who hints at an extraordinary archaeological find being sold in pieces on the black market.

This assiduously researched, fast-paced novel brings archaeology, bioengineering, and cyber espionage to life against an international backdrop of five continents. Listeners will meet a fascinating cast of characters on the trail of the elusive international criminal killers. Mixing the action of David Baldacci’s The Hit, the tech thrills of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, and the dialogue of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels, The Zulu Curse is a true pleasure to listen to.