Archaeologist/professor Emma Fielding hopes that her current field project will secure her tenure at the Maine university where she is the newest member of the Anthropology department. She believes that she has discovered the location of an English fort predating, not just the Plymouth colony, but also Jamestown. As her crew comes closer to discoveries that will confirm the fort's location, strange things begin happening. First Emma discovers a corpse on the beach. Then an armed treasure hunter forces his way onto the site and threatens to harm Emma if she gets in his way. Things continue to get worse from there, and as the crimes begin to pile up, Emma is puzzled to find herself a suspect rather than a victim. Like it or not, Emma is involved and can't rest until she finds out how these incidents are connected and who is behind them.

This is a very good start to a mystery series. The story is told with just the right amount of suspense. It has a nice balance between reason and action, so it might appeal to fans of adventure novels as well as traditional mystery fans. It has a bit more violence than most cozy mysteries, but not enough to put off most readers. It always irritates me when supposedly intelligent characters (like university professors) heedlessly put themselves in dangerous situations that a person of average intelligence would avoid, so I like Emma for her ability to curb these impulses, at least most of the time. This is a series I definitely want to continue reading. ( )

Emma Fielding is an archaeologist, as was her grandfather before her. She teaches at a small university, where she still has three years to go before she makes tenure. She is currently heading up work at a site where she believes she will find an old, pre-Jamestown fort, and the results will hopefully make getting her tenure that much easier and act as her ticket to fame in the archaeology world. But with not too much time left for the season, Emma finds a body near the beach, then is hassled and threatened by a pothunter. Just when you think that nothing else can go wrong, the murder of someone close to her just about sends Emma off the deep end. Teaming up with the local sheriff, Emma decides to do some investigating on her own.

I have to admit that I was totally off the mark in trying to guess the "whodunit," so in that sense, the mystery was a decent one. The author writes well and manages to keep your interest up throughout the story. It's still a bit cutesy for my taste, but I'm a tough audience. People who like a smattering of romance and love in their mysteries probably will enjoy it much more than I. It's a cute series, and I may go back to it someday, but not now. ( )