First published 2019
Curator Nora Kelly has built her reputation on successful excavations when historian Clive Benton approaches her with an irresistible proposal. He wants her to lead an expedition into the Sierra Nevada mountains to find the lost camp of the Donner Party, the ill-fated pioneers who became trapped in the winter of 1847. The survivors who emerged from those mountains carried tales of starvation, cannibalism, and death that burned themselves into American memory. Kelly agrees to the search, drawn by the historical mystery. She and Benton venture into the remote wilderness, expecting to uncover artifacts from a tragic chapter of westward expansion. Instead, they discover that finding the starvation camp opens a door to something far more dangerous. The truth about those long-dead pioneers proves more complex than either researcher imagined. Worse, their archaeological work has attracted the attention of people willing to kill for what the Donner Party left behind.
Genres: historical-fiction, adventure, mystery, archaeology, thriller
Vibes: dark, fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: amateur-sleuth, found-family, historical-mystery
Setting: Sierra Nevada, United States
Period: 1847, 21st century
369 pages · Hardcover · Grand Central Publishing
Content warnings: death, violence