There is no one better than Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child when it comes to combining thriller writing with elements of history, science, the supernatural and archaeology. They have been doing it since their immediate global bestseller, RELIC, in 1995, and there are no signs of them slowing down 30 years later.

BADLANDS is the fifth release in Preston & Child’s Nora Kelly series, and it has everything I mentioned above and more. Nora is a top-notch archaeologist who finds herself regularly utilizing her skills to assist her friend and colleague, FBI Agent Corrie Swanson. This latest situation finds Corrie in the stark New Mexico wasteland known as the badlands; there, a body mysteriously turns up where it never should have been. Additionally, the type of death prior to expiring --- stripping naked in the blazing desert to die of heatstroke and thirst --- is not a typical manner of suicide for a seemingly normal person.

"Nora, Corrie, Skip and many others initially appear powerless in the face of such unbridled evil, which gives BADLANDS the perfect jolt of intensity that rockets it forward to its exciting climax."

When human remains are discovered during overhead observation, the FBI is called in, and Corrie is given the lead role in the case. She is attached to the Albuquerque Field Office, which is in the middle of the Navajo Nation. An item discovered on the corpse raises suspicion and forces Corrie to call on Nora’s expertise. The deceased had two rare stones that were emerald in color and possessed a form of bioluminescence that gave them the nickname "lightning stones."

When Corrie and Nora go out to speak with the only possible eyewitness, a Navajo lady living in the middle of the badlands, she indicates that she remembers seeing the woman in the area and that she was venturing into a territory known for supernatural presences, such as skinwalkers and Navajo witches. The body is eventually identified as missing student Molly Vine. She had abandoned her PhD pursuit and most recently was teaching high school English. So why was she in the badlands and in possession of the lightning stones?

A second woman is found dead in the same condition and manner as Molly. Mandy Driver also was a PhD student from the University of New Mexico and had been working as a geological consultant. Corrie and Nora now have a pattern to follow, and it leads directly to the PhD advisor, Professor Oskarbi, who carries with him a flock of admirers and research assistants to the point of the group becoming almost cultlike. The only problem is that Oskarbi disappeared over a decade ago, allegedly heading back to Mexico to reunite with his mentor, Don Benicio, and was never seen by anyone again.

The team splits up, with Nora venturing into Mexico in search of Oskarbi and his mentor, while Corrie pursues the remainder of Oskarbi’s followers at UNM. Nora’s brother, Skip, is even called into action; he provides assistance in determining the origin of the lightning stones and why they were so eagerly sought. Nora finds Benicio, but he claims not to have seen Oskarbi since he left years earlier for his role at UNM. This means that whoever is behind what looks like two ritualized suicides, along with some other rumored strange behavior, is coming from another source.

Everything culminates in an unexpected and tense finale that reveals a desert cult in the badlands participating in very old spiritual practices in an effort to summon an ancient evil that no one in modern times has ever seen or heard of. Nora, Corrie, Skip and many others initially appear powerless in the face of such unbridled evil, which gives BADLANDS the perfect jolt of intensity that rockets it forward to its exciting climax. It’s another triumph for Preston & Child and a breathtaking adventure that never disappoints.