All four books in the Carter Devereux Mysteries series!
Nothing New Under the Sun
Carter’s research and exploration into this history takes him to South America, India, and the Middle East, where he makes mind-boggling discoveries which challenge our entire view of human history. And before long, Carter finds himself with not only a large number of critics from across the world, but also a number of ardent followers.
Through the ages kings, rulers, power seekers and governments, have been trying secretly, and sometimes not so secretly, to get their hands on artifacts believed to have immense power. Examples include the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant, Bachal Isu – the staff of Moses, carried by David, and the King of Kings, Jesus Christ, the Spear of Destiny, the time machine “the glock” created by the Germans during WWII, and ancient lost cities with hidden fortunes of gold and artifacts with unimaginable powers.
There is a no shortage of unscrupulous, power hungry people who will do anything, including kill, to possess these relics- if they exist.
Most frightening of them all are the ancient texts that speak of earth’s destruction by nuclear weapons thousands of years ago.
Do those nuclear weapons still exist?
If so where are they?
Can Carter Devereux discover them before anyone else can?
The Wolves of Freydis
Carter Devereux’s idyllic world had been shattered and catapulted into chaos, and with it, the fate of humanity itself.
With a traitor in their midst who seems to stay one step ahead of them, it is a race against time for Carter Devereux and a team of Special Forces operators who must fight evils never before encountered.
Can they uncover the traitor, free the captives from an unknown location, and stop the evil from sweeping in and changing the world as we know it?
The Alboran Codex
In the year 106 AD, when the Roman legions marched on their capital at Petra, the Nabateans surrendered their empire to the Romans, without a fight, and according to historians ceased to exist.
But very few knew that the Nabateans didn't cease to exist, they just stayed out of sight for more than 1,900 years, and now they are on the verge of implementing their final plan.
Carter Devereux, with his knowledge of the City of the Giants and their library in the Egyptian desert is the only obstacle in the way to achieve their goals.
Therefore, the order of the Council of the Covenant of Nabatea is clear; “We MUST have that information. All of it. Move in on Carter Devereux… and get it at all costs, up to and including the killing of everyone….”
The Nabatean Secret
Sentries at the Main Gate of Patch Barracks had turned away the last of the local Fasching revelers an hour or so before, laughingly joking with them that the Barracks were too quiet for their parties. A few soldiers, somewhat worse for wear after joining the locals for the opening night of Germany’s “Fifth Season”, straggled in around midnight. They were cheerfully waved through the gate by the envious guards, who had pulled duty that night and didn’t get to celebrate.
Since then, the night had been still, only the night sounds typical of the region breaking the silence. The cell and radio tower behind the thick trees was lit by an eerie glow from the remains of the Fasching bonfire a few miles away. It would be six long hours until sunrise and their relief.
I gave up after the first two books in the series, for several reasons.
The mix of ancient aliens and modern day political thriller can work well. This doesn't. He's propounding every crazy theory about antediluvian giants and advanced civilizations, with the addition of telepathic wolves, and at the same time trying to set everything in a highly realistic world. The leaps of logic are absurd: Here's a place with high radiation count. It must have been an ancient nuclear weapon. The ancients must have had far more advanced weaponry than us. The ancients must have written down how to make those weapons. Terrorists are probably looking for those ancient writings so they can make those weapons. Therefore the President will authorize a team of combat archaeologists to stop at nothing to find them. Ummm, right. And there's more.
Our hero is ridiculous. The most successful archaeologist in the world. He's a master of martial arts. He can complete Navy SEAL training in a fraction of the normal time and be way better than his instructors. And he does the same with intelligence training, getting the highest ever scores in everything. He's a marksman. An expert hunter. An expert pilot. An expert sailor and diver. All before he's 25. Oh, and he's a billionaire. And so's his beautiful wife, who's the greatest microbiologist in the world, as well as a specialist in ancient languages and a full-time mom.
And lastly, this edition desperately needs a proofreader. It's riddled with typos, punctuation mistakes, and just general sloppy editing. He even gets character names wrong. I liked the Rossler Foundation books, but this became unreadable.
In many ways, these books serve as a precursor to the Rossler Foundation cycle. They use similar tropes and have somewhat similar characters. If you read this series first, it would not occur to you that it was the precursor to anything. Therefore, if you are new to reading Ryan, begin here.
But if you have already read Rossler, you will have the vague feeling as you read this that you have read it before, only different.
And that 's okay.
Like every other writer, Ryan grew into the top of his form.
In previous reviews I have compared Ryan to that grand old man Robert Heinlein. If you have read a lot of Heinlein, you know that excluding his juvies, which were pretty much pot-boilers, his work after Sixth Column and before Stranger was leading up to Stranger.
After Stranger his work took a drastic shift. It was still readable --a master at his worst is still better than a loser at his best--but it was different. It was from the mind rather than the heart.
I have not read, or even heard of, much of Ryan's work. But I go out as I came in. Devereux reads like a precursor to Rossler. I will be very surprised if Ryan does not shift gears after Rossler. But I would have been astonished if he had shifted gears after Devereux.
Is this series worth reading? Oh, yes, very much so once you get past a slightly rocky and somewhat confusing opener which found me occasionally turning back to earlier passages to be sure that I remembered them correctly. But if you haven't already read Rossler, read Devereux first.
I read this collection for the second time - the first time being in 2017 when I just was eager to know what follows - and this time I realized what a mind boggling, enthralling and engrossing collection these four books are!
They cover the life and adventures of archeologist Prof. Carter Devereaux and his wife Mackenzie, a molecular biologist! Carter travels to various parts of the world such as Peru, India, Egypt, Italy, the Mediterranean etc and discovering artifacts of utmost importance for the humankind! These discoveries draw the attention of unscrupulous elements and how those are dealt with as they arise forms the subject matter of this collection!
This is a brilliant epic story that brings together archeology, bible, ancient treatises from India, China and other countries and weaves events around them! The descriptions of the events make the reader think deeply about all the subjects discussed in the books!
This is truly a phenomenal collection that is brilliant and smooth flowing! All the characters are delightful and captivating!
A thoroughly enjoyable reading experience and I am now off to read the fifth book in the series! Thank you Mr. Ryan for an amazing and extraordinary series that is also informative!!
Did Not Finish. I wish I'd been able to read this book a decade or so ago, then I probably would have enjoyed it. Instead I found myself infuriated by the constant allusions to 'lost races of super beings' and 'surely the Egyptians couldn't have built such wonders as the pyramids without help'!
I'm fighting the urge to go on a long, vitriolic rant on everything that pissed me off so I shall limit myself to one point of rage... Carter's HIGHLY unethical method of securing an initial date with Mackenzie left me wanting to beat the man senseless! His actions borderline on Gaslighting her for crying out loud and this man's supposed to be our noble and heroic main character!
If you get easily infuriated by books that take huge liberties with science and facts then I really cannot recommend this book to you, but if your capable of compartmentalising enough or if such liberties do not bother you then you will probably enjoy it. You can probably guess which camp I'm in...
I read the first six chapters of Nothing New Under the Sun and decided I didn't need to continue. There wasn't anything particularly bad about it, it just didn't really interest me.
Well, I guess there was one thing I found bad about it. The protagonist. A 25-year-old, single university professor who has already struck it rich but continues because he likes to teach seemed like a little bit of a stretch from the beginning. I felt like I might as well be reading a romance novel.
Nothing against those who read or write romance novels, but for novels set in the real world or a close approximation of it I prefer characters who are more realistic/believable. In the end, this series just wasn't for me.
CREEPY. Quit after 3 chapters of the first book. The protagonist runs into a woman to whom he's attracted, so instead of asking her out he gaslights her, getting an IT friend to hack into her email account to send him an invitation for coffee, which he accepts. She worries about not remembering sending the invite, to the point of thinking she should speak to her doctor about possible memory loss. He, on the other hand, is smugly pleased with himself, patting himself on the back for the progress of the "project" - his term for trying to build a relationship with her. There is enough objectifying and violence against women in the real world; I certainly don't want it in the fiction I read for pleasure.
These four books, J. C. Ryan's The Carter Devereux Mystery Thrillers compose the most exciting thriller series I have ever read! Obviously it is a 5 star read. Each of the four books is a 5 star read. If you like thrillers, world travel, archeological hunting and discovery, incredibly cleverly written characters, international intrigue, communication with wolves and dolphins, and so much more. And the bad guys are really really bad. If this sounds interesting to you, I promise you won't be disappointed!
Ryan has written several other series I'm looking forward to reading soon.
Another great book from the pen of J C Ryan. In fact a series of books written in sequence covering the highs and lows of Carter Deveraux and, his fiery red headed wife, Mackenzie as they continue their archaeological adventures around the globe. High drama, kidnapping, murder and mystery together with treasonous activities of a group of fanatics directly descending from biblical times and secretly hiding the wonders of science, for their own benefits, discovered many 1000 's of years past
Any books that are written by JC Ryan are an excellent read. He puts so much research and description into the historical facts that make the stories feel like you're actually there. The main character is an Archeologist, who is brilliant; meets a brilliant red haired Biologist. Of course there is peril that they need to overcome. But with the help of a great group of colleagues and friends who always have their back; they can do just about anything.
Don’t pass up this group of four books! You get hooked on the very first book then when you get to the end, book 2 is right there to continue! Thought the fist book is good, well the second is just as good. Don’t believe for a moment book 3 can’t be as good as the first two but your wrong. Book 3 is excellent. Then you are gifted with Book4 (The Newbatean Secret). Can’t think if another book where each page was full of intrigue, suspense, action. It’s really that good!
I read the 4 book series. The characters were well developed and drew you in. The settings were beautifully described. The the plots were forever intriguing. The author did an amazing job of developing a long back story before getting into intrigue and then building upon its complexity. The stories start out so real and before it’s done, you are so engrossed that everything becomes too real. I truly hope there is more books to come in this series.
A worthwhile read...with the developing story of Mackenzie and Carter, their family and friends. There were times that the details were a bit of overwhelming and tedious, but overall the story moved quickly and kept the reader engaged. The wolves of Freydis brought a welcome twist to the overall sorry and kept the reader engaged. I'd recommend the series!
WOW!! What a ride. Once I started I couldn't put it down. Every spare moment, I was back into it, (to the detriment of my family life.) So many twist and turns, the action keeps coming and coming. The characters were well written and very relatable. The plots, while fantastic, were believable with a lot of alternate history woven into the fiction. It was impossible to separate the two. I highly recommend it to readers of Clive Cussler.
When I first began this collection, I almost stopped. It just wasn't getting it done for me. But then once I start a book, I almost never quit. Really glad that I didn't. As I got deeper and deeper into the story, I just wanted to keep reading. I essentially pulled an all nighter in order to finish. I didn't do all nighters even in college. But I really really was pulled in by This series. All I can say is, "read it."
I truly enjoyed Nothing New under the Sun, the first book in the Carter Devereux Mysteries i repeatedly fact checked information given in the book, which was always correct, not even stretched a bit! However, I wish that we didn’t always make the Middle East seem evil. All in all, it was a good read.
This is a 3 book set. It will make you think. Even though it is fiction you will wonder if it could be based on fact. Very well written and suspense from the first page. Characters are so good you will read much to long at a time because you have to keep tract of them. The first 2 books were just about half of my reader and the third book was the longest at 50%.
These 4 books have kept me enthralled fo the last 2 1/2 weeks. I have never been so attracted to a story line. Adventure! Education! Darn good/great writing I will be looking forever to more J C Ryan literature. Suggest strongly that any thinking person should read him for entertainment.
I did not read these four books back to back. I would read 1 book and then go on to read something else. Then I will come back and read the next volume in the set. It actually took me about 2 months to read all 4 books. I found all of the books to be very exciting and very interesting. I would highly recommend this set to anyone.
Can't get enough of this writer. Yes I read Rossler Foundation first and was totally immersed in it as it was awesome. The humor, wit, excitement and great characters keep me turning pages and hating for the stories to end. On to book five today :)
Along series but for the most part enjoyable long series with characters I wanted to know what happened to and an engaging story based on an interesting premise that deserves considerization.
I read all four of these books in 2 days. The conspiracies, the characters, everything kept my attention. I wanted to see how the story ended, but didn't want it to end at the same time.
Great story line. Great development. I was a captive when I was only a couple of chapters in. Some of the relationships/connections between the characters are highly unlikely. But willing suspense of disbelief is necessary whenever you pick up fabulous fiction.
Great read! Action, adventure, conspiracy theories and great characters.
I have really enjoyed these books. What a hair raising adventure. The far out stuff was so realistically written Thani kept googling places and theories to see if they were actually real or not.
I loved the suspense and twists and turns in the characters and the plot. I would recommend this to anyone who likes a good mystery with a bit of history thrown in.
All four of the books in this series are well written and interesting. They follow each other in an easy way. The characters and places are well described. The story is very well done.
Action packed from start to finish. Fantastic characters, who will have you second guessing what you believe, and wondering if there is true that lies within. Highly recommend! Looking forward to the next book.
The series I could not stop reading I would highly recommend reading thi. In fact I would like to have more books on this character and his wife. you won't be disappointed
Am amazing amount of thought went into making me believe that these wonders of Ancient civilizations actually existed. Throw in a dynamic duo who live for the adventures of international intrigue and you have a Maurier collection.