Track of the Scorpion

Archeologist Nicolette Scott faces scorching New Mexico desert heat and a 50-year-old mystery in this action-packed debut. While at a dig with her father, an eminent Anasazi scholar, Nick learns of an airplane buried in the sand. Nick, who has already found a WWII B-24 in a New Guinea jungle, investigates and discovers a B-17, also from WWII, with its body shot up. Inside are the skeletal remains of 11 people, one more than the required crew. Nick wonders who the passenger was and why an American plane was shot down over New Mexico and abandoned. The coverup occurs as she begins to voice her questions. The plane, with a painted scorpion on its nose, is carted away, and then newspaper stories about its discovery are retracted. Accused of perpetrating a hoax, she is put on medical leave by the archeological department at UC-Berkeley. Then people who know of the plane's existence begin to die in what look like accidental deaths. Unwilling to drop her search, Nick follows clues to a millionaire businessman with a connection to 1940s atom bomb testing that ties into the B-17's fatal flight. Through her fast-paced probing to the conclusion in the desert, Nick proves herself an intelligent, game heroine whom readers will want to meet again. (Aug.)