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Robert R. Irvine

Nicolette Scott is an archaeologist with an unusual specialty, the recent past, and an even odder passion: uncovering lost airplanes. But ancient civilizations are where the funding is, and the New Mexico badlands are where her father is, so Nick bides her time on a dig of prehistoric Anasazi dwellings. When a prospector brings word of his unexpected find—an airplane buried in the shifting sands of the desert—Nick is eager to investigate.

What she finds is an American B-17 bomber, shot down over friendly territory, its long-dead crew still inside. As Nick tries to trace the warplane's origins and crew, she soon realizes she's triggered a massive cover-up. Within days the newspaper that reported her discovery has retracted its story, the B-17 itself has disappeared, Nick's career is in serious jeopardy, and people who saw the plane are starting to die. It will take every survival instinct Nick has learned in the brutal desert to keep her from being the next victim.

Angela Brazil

Blackstone Publishing

Nicolette Scott Mysteries

Track of the Scorpion

On a dig at the edge of the sun-seared Sonoran Desert, archaeologist Nicolette Scott witnesses a bizarre plane crash that leaves a young man dead in the cockpit of his mangled, burning Cessna. Federal investigators call it "pilot error," but the dead man's grieving grandfather, John Gault, a man who shares Nick's passion for aviation, is demanding answers. Nick knows what she saw with her own eyes-a chopper shadowing the Cessna before it went down-but no one seems to believe her except John. The two join forces, using a lovingly restored B-24 warplane to rip open a secret hidden in the heat-soaked desert. What they find will plunge them into a fierce battle against a deadly conspiracy in the heart of the West's most forbidding land.

Flight of the Serpent

A mission to murder …

Fifteen miles long, bordered by pristine white beaches, Balesin is an emerald paradise in the blue waters of the South Pacific and home to a bizarre religious cult. Since World War II, the people of Balesin have worshiped airplanes and the rich cargo they carry. Hoping to obtain the spoils of the modern world, they have spent decades trying to lure aircraft down out of the sky with a homemade airstrip and mock planes. But for those who know it, Balesin has an even darker side—one shrouded in a legend of death and cannibalism.

For Nicolette Scott, an expedition to Balesin brings together her life’s twin passions: archaeology and airplanes. But soon two members of the expedition are dead, and from thousands of miles away, a powerful noose of intrigue is tightening around natives and visitors alike. Now Nicolette’s life is in danger too, as her research brings her closer to uncovering this strange island's long-held mysteries, secrets from the past that have the power to kill.

Wake of the Hornet

Nicolette Scott is an archaeologist whose knowledge of early airplanes has won her kudos as an expert, a reputation for ignoring authority, and a job at the Smithsonian. Shortly after she begins working there, she is thrilled to be included in the museum's latest project. E-Group, a large pharmaceutical company, is equipping an expedition to a remote region of Alaska, where a Japanese "Val" bomber plane was shot down during World War II. It's a gamble, but the money is being provided, and if the small group of experts can locate the plane and somehow bring it back to Washington, it will be a coup—and a boost for Nicolette's career.

Not long after the search begins, Nicolette is shocked to discover that there is a darker reason for E-Group's generous sponsorship. The expedition's real goal reaches all the way back to the great Spanish flu epidemic of 1918–1919, grimly nicknamed "the Spanish Lady," which killed millions around the world. The virus of this flu still exists in those few victims who are preserved in frozen ground—and once the pharmaceutical company learns that three World War I veterans searching Alaska for gold had died of the disease near the Val, they will do everything in their power to get their hands on the bodies.

Unless Nicolette risks her own life to defuse E-Group's nefarious plan, the lives of hundreds of millions will be at stake.

The Return of the Spanish Lady

“That car…belonged to a pair of bank robbers. Their names were Knute and Nora and they were almost as famous as Bonnie and Clyde during the Depression…They got killed in the Green River Massacre, but the car was never found.”

“There’s more,” Nick said. “This paper is dated more than a year before the Japanese attacked Pearl…And there’s a handwritten notation at the bottom: ‘If need be, we must allow the Japanese to strike the first blow in order to unite the American people for the coming war,’…initialed ‘FDR.’”

Nicolette Scott and her father are both archaeologists—but with differences. Professor ElliotScott lives and breathes very early Americans, like the Anasazi. His digs are in the southwest, where the ancient peoples lived. To him, his daughter Nicky’sarea of concern is not to be taken seriously. Nicky goes for the culture embodied by artifacts from the twentieth century—a crashed plane from either world war is enough to send her senses tingling. So when she discovers a 1937 Packard convertible hidden in a sealed cave in the Utah desert, she is ecstatic. It’s only when she begins to read through the papers hidden under a seat cushion that the thrill turns to something very like a chill. If those papers are genuine, they represent a huge find for Nick. But they also represent one of the most scandalous secrets in our country’s history.

Authentic or fake, they are still important to someone, as Nick learns when invisible threats start closing in, culminating in a murderous meeting under the blazing Utah sun. This is Nicolette’s most suspenseful dig, and one that will keep readers gasping and pages turning.