Cliff-hangers and ancient secrets
Grass Valley novelist Avanti Centrae (avanticentrae.com) is back with a world-spanning tale, full of ancient secrets, only now revealed, with deadly consequences. What is unfolded is nothing less than “Cleopatra’s Vendetta” ($17.99 in paperback from Thunder Creek Press; also for Amazon Kindle and in audiobook format).
Subtitled “A Stryker Thriller,” it’s a reference to one Timothy Stryker, an officer in “the field arm of one of the Army’s cuttingedge think tanks, the US Futures Command.” Looking for brains more than brawn — intel became vital after 9/11 — “the military created a special unit of recruits that previously wouldn’t have made it through psych testing.”
Stryker, extraordinary linguist, expert in disguises, and “brutally honest,” lost his sister and mother when he was seven as his father murdered them. Jerónimo Guerrero Reyes — Rey — “held dual degrees in mechanical engineering and information technology” but his “sensitivity to smells and noise” is worsened by his PTSD.
The team also includes Stryker’s sister-in-law Samantha Coin — Sam — a compulsive gambler but empathetic, single with “trouble committing — to men or women.” She is in Bari, Italy on holiday with her sister, Angie, Stryker’s wife, while Stryker is in Saudi Arabia investigating a tip that a high Saudi official will be assassinated.
Angie is CEO of a biofuels company, CIA operative, and heavy drinker, trying to drown her sorrows after losing a child. She’s brought their 4-yearold daughter, Harper, to Italy, after Tim and Angie argue over her boozing.
Then, to Sam’s horror, both Angie and Harper are kidnaped, and the team must race to find them. At the same time world leaders are being killed, and the U.S. president and president-elect are also targeted. Tied up in it all is a shadowy group calling itself the Sons of Adam, still active after thousands of years when, earlier, members of the Sons of Adam helped lead to Cleopatra’s demise.
But the queen will exact her revenge, even if it has to wait until the present day, hiding her own intel on the group’s secret, millennia-long propaganda effort that has changed the course of history.
Through cliff-hangers and twisty turns, readers will be propelled to an explosive ending — both literally and psychologically.