A series I have been enjoying is the “Wilde and Chase” series, by British author Andy McDermott, which stars archaeologist Nina Wilde and her bodyguard/ex-SAS/boyfriend and now husband Eddie Chase.
I had read the 12th in the series, The Midas Legacy, in 2016 or so. Since then there have been three more. But I hadn’t gotten them because, for some reason, his U.S. publisher seems to have dropped him, despite being an “international best seller.” I recently obtained them through Amazon, buying U.K. paperbacks.
This is something I’ve seen with some other authors, and is a sign of a shakeup in the publishing industry that I don’t like. This means that this series no longer appears in bookstores.
So to introduce this series, the first eight Wilde and Chase novels comprised a loose series, as they had a secondary story line dealing with Atlantis that started with the first novel and is wrapped up with the eighth. So, yes, various legendary places and technology will be shown as real in this series. We learn that when Wilde was a child, his parents had been killed looking for Atlantis, and Nina discovers it in the first book. This, unfortunately, puts her in danger from various groups wanting to use the power it represents. Chase is assigned her as a bodyguard, and from that point on they have their adventures discovering wild things tied to legends and archaeology. Thanks to Chase’s extensive network of connections around the world, they are able to get unofficial help in their adventures.
The U.N. created the International Heritage Agency to manage and protect discoveries like Atlantis. Nina is a part of the group, eventually becoming the director. She finally leaves the IHA later in the series.
In the ninth novel, The Valhalla Prophecy, we have a new phase for both characters. The biggest is Nina getting infected by a strange material discovered by the Russians. In the next novel, Kingdom of Darkness, they find a cure for Nina. I had actually thought this subplot might have lasted a little longer.
The next novel, The Revelation Code, has Nina being pregnant. This was surprising, as I don’t think we’ve had a thriller series with a pregnant main character. The next one, which was the last one I read, The Midas Legacy, is set three years later. Thus they have a 3-year-old girl, Macy. And Nina meets her maternal grandmother, whom she thought dead. But, again, having a small child being threatened is something not seen.
I would also recommend reading the series in order, as we see some of the secondary characters die at certain points, some go through changes in their lives that affects Nina or Chase, and the like.
Now, moving on. The “new to me” novels are King Solomon’s Curse (2017), The Spear of Atlantis (2018), and The Resurrection Key (2019), all of which I’ve recently read.
King Solomon’s Curse is set about two years after the last one. We get a couple of prologues of a dangerous African warlord who is captured and later freed by a mysterious group. In present time, Nina has been making a living doing books and documentaries. I am reminded of similar such shows on TV today. Thanks to what she learned in a previous work, Nina discovered the location of the original temple of Solomon, and is involved with a dig, accompanied by her film crew.
Along the way they discover, thanks to Nina again, a hidden series of room, the first having a diorama of a lost city in Africa known to Solomon thanks to the Queen of Sheba. This is the City of the Damned, and there Solomon had returned an item of power to the Palace Without Entrance, which is in the legends about Solomon.
Nina figures out where its located. And after info on the diorama is leaked by the press, she mounts an expedition with her film crew to find it and learn what is here. But certainly that escaped warlord will make an appearance, and he has a grudge with Eddie. They will deal with not only him but a rogue British agent, resulting in several deaths close to them, and about half the novel is dealing with the agent and what they found in the Palace that shakes up things in the U.K., literally.
I had thought we were done with Atlantis, but I guess not because next we get The Spear of Atlantis (2018). Here we get a prologue that lets us understand the dangerous item the Atlantians had. In present day, it’s two years after the last story. Macy is now 7. Nina, after what happened in the last novel, no longer does expeditions, preferring to write books and the like.
She and her family, including her grandmother, are invited to the launch of a new cruise ship owned by a Persian Gulf emirate wanting to modernize. It has a display of Atlantian items, and she’ll give a lecture. But while giving a private tour with the emir, they are attacked by a mysterious group and an item is stolen, which might allow this group to find the dangerous item we saw in the prologue. Something that may contain anti-matter!
Nina is accused of stealing the item, and to clear her name, escapes and goes after the bad guys, feeling she needs to find the item before they do. But is there more to it, as Eddie soon follows? Macy gets a little involved, thankfully not as a hostage.
It all worked out at the end, but there are setups for future stories at the end.
Finally, we have The Resurrection Key (2019). This one has links back to an earlier novel, The Covenant of Genesis (2009) and the pre-human race introduced there. It’s now three years after the previous novel. Nina is now a professor at Columbia, Macy is 10, and Eddie is celebrating his 50th birthday (with family and a few friends you’ll recognize from prior novels).
Someone online is selling a “key” that one of Nina’s students wants to buy, as it will help with his theory about a pre-human civilization. Nina and Eddie get pulled in, and others are also after it, of course. Macy will get involved, as well, thanks to some of the bad guys, but does get to help out a little.
The story takes them to an iceberg in the Antarctic Ocean, to New Zealand, China, and, finally, to Uluru in Australia. They have to deal with two deadly groups, and with a threat to all mankind from an ancient pre-human race that’s been awaken.
Now, there haven’t been any new novels since, as McDermott has been doing a new series with military agent Alex Reeve: Operative #66 and Rogue Assett. I’m not sure if this is the start of a new series, or if this is just a two-book series. But the next Wilde and Chase novel will be coming out in 2023: Lord of the Dead.
If you haven’t checked out this series yet, do so. I find it one of the more creative action-thriller stories. The two characters complement each other, with Nina being the more cerebral one, and Eddie providing the muscle and action, though he is not an idiot, and he has a strong moral compass that often puts him at odds with other characters.
I was wondering how they would work in the kid, as they can’t be dragging her along on their trips. But there is always a danger that the bad guys will try to threaten her, which I hope won’t be a theme. But in the last two novels she had a greater role to play and was able to help out. I prefer seeing that than having her just be a pawn. How will it go with the next one? We’ll have to see. Hopefully, it will add to the novel and not be a disaster.
