About a month out from PulpFest, the sixth Thomas Adam Grey thriller by Duane Laflin, The Ancient Bones, came out. As I’ve been enjoying this series, I quickly got and read it. This series continues to be great, and I look forward to the next one.
Laflin is a retired professional magician who now writes novels. Wayne Reinagel has done the covers for all the books so far, and we get another that is clearly inspired by James Bama‘s Doc Savage covers. And that’s not a bad thing. I was fortunate to meet both of them at the recent PulpFest, and I hope we will see them there again in the future.
Thomas Adam Grey is a Secret Service agent tired of protecting corrupt politicians. He has decided to quit and start his own personal-protection business, based in Kansas City. Thomas is more than 6 feet tall, with hair halfway between brown and blond, and gray eyes. He is often compared to a lion in human form. While very capable, he is not invulnerable, so things don’t always go his way.
Assisting him is his secretary, and now wife, Tiffany Swensen, who runs his office. Starting in the third novel, she actually accompanied him for a good part of the book, which was interesting. We see their relationship develop, especially in the previous novel, The Medusa Sting. I figured they would marry, so it was less a question of if than when. Also, unlike other thriller heroes, Thomas doesn’t have others he can call on. His former boss at the Secret Service has only occasionally made an appearance, only via phone, as he does here. A character met in a prior novel is mentioned, but does not appear.
If it’s not clear, this one centers around the world of multimillion-dollar fossils, or more specifically, the smuggling and selling of such fossils. Things kick off in Paris at an auction of such fossils, when a representative of the Mongolian government demands to know who the seller of a certain fossil is, as he claims it was taken illegally from Mongolia. We are thus introduced to our “big bad” of this novel: Barrett Phineas Taylor, and some of his associates, who are not above killing to get what they want: money.
We are then introduced to our hero, Thomas Adam Grey, and Tiffany Swensen, now his wife, who are on their honeymoon. But things quickly get messed up. We are then introduced to Thomas’s next client, a cowboy named Bucky Struthers, who lives in South Dakota and finds the fossil of a rare giant turtle. He knows he needs to find someone who can buy it, and knows at least that such fossils are valuable. But he makes one mistake: he approaches our bad guy, thinking him an honest businessman, but decides not to sell for the low amount offered. Now he knows that the man’s associates are trying to get the fossil from him, so he reaches out to Thomas because he knows Louie Ford, introduced in The Deadly Skulls.
While Thomas does come and tries to help, the fossil is stolen, though Bucky is okay. Now matters are in Thomas’s hands. He and Tiffany fly to Paris because they believe the fossil is being auctioned off. This leads to another confrontation with some of the bad guy’s associates, a pair of twins with an interesting name. But Taylor and his other associates disappear, and Thomas learns they are heading to Mongolia.
Thus, Thomas and Tiffany head to Mongolia, and Tiffany has made a fortunate connection with a government official. This will lead to further deadly trouble in Mongolia, both manmade and natural, before Thomas has his final confrontation with Taylor and can get back the fossil. Before that, Thomas, Tiffany, and their friend have a confrontation with Taylor’s associates that may surprise people.
Another great adventure. We get a very different storyline this time. I had wondered if we would see prior characters in these stories. We had one mentioned, but he didn’t actually appear. We’ll see what happens in the future. And where will Thomas and Tiffany’s relationship go now that they are married? She has been getting more involved with the stories, as we see here, so how this goes remains to be seen.
At present all I know is that the sixth volume will come out January of 2026. No idea of the title. In the mean time check out his new series, the Hugo Clayton series, a Tarzan-like character. The first novel, Hugo’s Flight, came out in September.
If you liked this one, check out some of the author’s other works. The Carson Gold series seems similar and is even recommended at the end of this volume, as are the Eli Brown books, though I haven’t read them myself.
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