Thread of the Spider

"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 Elliott Scott 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's area of concern is not to be taken at all 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 come closer and closer to Nick, to culminate 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.

"Val Davis" is the husband and wife team of Robert and Angie Irvine, and this is the fifth in their series starring archaeologist Nicky Scott. Before they teamed up as writers, Bob was singly responsible for a number of mystery novels, most notably the series set in Salt Lake City (his hometown), and featuring the delicate relationship of a lapsed Mormon detective who is frequently called upon to solve the secular problems of the Church of Latterday Saints.