Special Agent Pendergast assists NYPD Lieutenant D'Agosta in the investigation of a number of killings that ultimately prove to be messages from his wife's kidnappers.

"A long-buried family secret resurfaces when one of Aloysius Pendergast's most implacable enemies shows up on his doorstep as a murdered corpse. The mystery has all the hallmarks of the perfect murder, save for an enigmatic clue: a piece of turquoise lodged in the stomach of the deceased. The gem leads Pendergast to an abandoned mine on the shore of California's desolate Salton Sea, which in turn propels him on a journey of discovery deep into his...

"A seemingly straightforward private case turns out to be much more complicated--and sinister--than Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast ever could have anticipated. Pendergast, together with his ward Constance Greene, travels to the quaint seaside village of Exmouth, Massachusetts, to investigate the theft of a priceless wine collection. But inside the wine cellar, they find something considerably more disturbing: a bricked-up niche that once held a crumbling...

Nora Kelly, a young but successful curator with a series of important excavations already under her belt, is approached by the handsome Historian, Guy Porter, to lead an expedition unlike any other. Guy tells his story--one involving the ill-fated Donner Party, who became permanently lodged in the American consciousness in the winter of 1847, when the first skeletonized survivors of the party stumbled out of the California mountains, replete with...