Book Description

About the Book The Curse of the Minotaur? Eleven archeologists have been kidnapped and two detectives murdered at a remote and newly discovered ancient dig site. Teen genius Adam St. James has traveled to the remote White Mountains of Crete with brother Rod Suarez and father Dr. Edward St. James to investigate. He is soon joined by the mysterious Greek beauty Athena and her equally enigmatic guardian Stefano. They offer to help in solving this mystifying puzzle, but do they have a hidden agenda, one that could spell death for Adam and his family? What do this pair really want, and what part does the ancient and historic Minoan civilization play in events as they unfold. Athena is as spoiled as she is beautiful, and she finds herself trying to manipulate the brothers; Rod is fascinated by her narcissism, but Adam isn’t buying it. Is it the Curse of the Minotaur, or something else far less mythical and far more insidious, and closer to home? Adam is thirteen years old, and already a budding computer genius, when his father receives an urgent request from the Greek government and his old friend, fellow archeologist Spiro Antiacos, to assist with a confounding mystery. Antiacos, curator of a major national museum of antiquities in Athens, tells Edward that eleven anthropologists at a new dig on the island of Crete have discovered evidence of a massive find related to the Cult of the Minotaur, and the late King Minos. That’s the good news; the bad news is that they have all disappeared, one by one, while at the same time two Greek detectives from the national police have been found murdered. After months of investigation, little has been revealed about the missing anthropologists, and the local residents seem unable or unwilling to help. Oddly, they also claim to be the direct inheritors of Minoan civilization, which flourished three thousand five hundred years earlier. They claim that the disappearance of the men and women has been the result of the desecration of their homeland, the Minos Valley, and because of the Curse of the Minotaur. No object from the many temples and sites in the Minos Valley may be disturbed without earning the strongest rebuke possible: death. Dr. Edward St. James arrives at the dig site with his sons, his on again off again girlfriend, field archeologist Desiree “Dez” D’rq, his forensic colleague, Dr. Kirsten Branch, and his two security experts, ex-SAS Brits, Peter and Archie Benson. Joining them are fellow forensic anthropologist Max VanCamp and his wife, adventurer and thrill seeker, Eene “Enya” Svensson. As they arrive in Athens on the way to Crete, they are tracked by two shadowy figures, both shady antiquities dealers well-known for walking up to, and occasionally crossing, the legal line of the criminal underworld of stolen and looted antiquities. As the group make their way to the dig site in the remote White Mountains of Chania prefecture and settle in, they begin to assess the state of affairs and determine how to proceed, using advanced technology and cutting-edge forensic techniques. Not knowing who to trust, they rely only on themselves and begin to solve the mysteries of what is, and is not, possible. Edward discounts the Curse in favor of a criminal conspiracy reaching into the highest levels of the Greek government, law enforcement, and academia. The relics are priceless, but where are they, if they even exist? The group is stymied; the criminals and their kidnap victims have seemingly disappeared without a trace. The plot twists and turns as friend is foe, and foe is friend. This story is a fantasy with all the mystery of the myth and legend of ancient Minoan civilization set against a background of Adam’s coming of age and his budding relationship with beautiful and temperamental young Athena. The action is exciting, the characters compelling, and the plot intricate as murder, betrayal, and intrigue dominate the pages of Minos. Buckle up reader; you’re in for the thrill of a lifetime!