Format: Hardcover, 368 pages
Release Date: June 3, 2025
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Source: Publisher
Genre: Occult & Supernatural
The #1 New York Times bestselling authors Preston & Child return with a thrilling tale in which archaeologist Nora Kelly and FBI Agent Corrie Swanson, while investigating bizarre deaths in the desert, awaken an ancient evil more terrifying than anything they’ve faced before.
In the New Mexico badlands, the skeleton of a woman is found—and the case is assigned to FBI Agent Corrie Swanson. The victim walked into the desert, shedding clothes as she went, and died in agony of heatstroke and thirst. Two rare artifacts are found clutched in her bony hands—lightning stones used by the ancient Chaco people to summon the gods.
Is it suicide or… sacrifice?
Agent Swanson brings in archaeologist Nora Kelly to investigate. When a second body is found—exactly like the other—the two realize the case runs deeper than they imagined. As Corrie and Nora pursue their investigation into remote canyons, haunted ruins, and long-lost rituals, they find themselves confronting a dark power that, disturbed from its long slumber, threatens to exact an unspeakable price.
In the New Mexico badlands, the skeleton of a woman is found—and the case is assigned to FBI Agent Corrie Swanson. The victim walked into the desert, shedding clothes as she went, and died in agony of heatstroke and thirst. Two rare artifacts are found clutched in her bony hands—lightning stones used by the ancient Chaco people to summon the gods.
Is it suicide or… sacrifice?
Agent Swanson brings in archaeologist Nora Kelly to investigate. When a second body is found—exactly like the other—the two realize the case runs deeper than they imagined. As Corrie and Nora pursue their investigation into remote canyons, haunted ruins, and long-lost rituals, they find themselves confronting a dark power that, disturbed from its long slumber, threatens to exact an unspeakable price.
Badlands is the 5th installment in author Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's Nora Kelly series, featuring archaeologist Nora Kelly and FBI Agent Corrie Swanson. FBI Agent Corrie Swanson is assigned the investigation into the skeleton of a woman found in the New Mexico badlands by a movie crew. The woman apparently walked into the desert, removed all her clothes while walking, and died of heatstroke and thirst. By the bones, an arrowhead and two round, green stones called lightning stones are found.
When Corrie calls Nora to look at the arrowhead, Nora immediately takes more interest in the stones, which she identifies as scarce green lightning stones. The body is later identified as Molly Vine, who went missing five years earlier. When another body is found and identified as Mandy Driver, a geological consultant, two green lightning stones are again found by her. Their investigation leads Corrie and Nora to believe that the two deaths might be connected to Professor Oskarbi who had ties to both deceased women at the University of New Mexico.
He also had an interest in the Gallinas, indigenous people who used lightning stones and were wiped out in the 13th century by the Chaco Canyon people. How does this all connect together? As Corrie and Nora pursue the investigation into remote canyons, haunted ruins, and long-lost rituals, they find themselves confronting a dark power that, disturbed from its long slumber, threatens to exact an unspeakable price. In the meantime, Nora's younger brother, Skip, gets into a situation where he needs Nora to save him from his idiocy.
The investigation follows some complicated turns along the way, and several different story lines are going on as everything heads to a run-in with the supernatural. Nora and Corrie complement each other, and having Nora’s brother, & Corrie’s very close friend, Sheriff Watts, in the story adds some depth to the story. Corrie, first introduced in Still Life with Crows (2003), has evolved from a troubled, rebellious teenager into a capable yet still-developing FBI agent who finally gets her chance to prove herself to her supervisors.
I appreciate that the co-authors incorporated actual historical context into this story. I once visited New Mexico to visit a friend and interview for a job. I can honestly say the State has a unique and long history of Indian tribes that didn't like each other, and used brutality and genocide to wipe out entire tribes of men, women, and children. Going back to the 12th century, a tribe known as the Galina people lived in New Mexico. They were said to have been wiped out by another tribe called Chaco, which existed in the same time frame. Were they wiped out because they practiced dark magic and believed in Skinwalkers, or was it something else entirely?
