The Mystery of the Deadly Provenance

Mystery of the Deadly Provenance / Book # 7 A Jamie Blackwood Mystery When ancient artifacts become modern murder weapons, archaeology professor Jamie Blackwood faces his most dangerous case yet. A peaceful morning at Jamie's West Virginia cabin is shattered when Dr. Sarah Brennan arrives with disturbing news: Pre-Columbian pottery at the university shows signs of sophisticated forgery. What begins as academic curiosity quickly escalates into a deadly conspiracy when graduate student Alex Waters is found dead, staged to look like suicide. Detective Sandra Elkfoot's investigation reveals a chilling truth: someone is systematically eliminating witnesses to an international artifact smuggling operation that reaches from university collections to European private collectors. As bodies pile up and evidence points in every direction, Jamie and Sandra realize the killer has been inside their investigation from the beginning. With Jamie's reputation destroyed and his life threatened, the team from the Java Bean must navigate a web of academic corruption, tribal artifact theft, and international crime. When sacred Native American pieces begin disappearing from supposedly secure locations, Jamie faces an impossible choice: expose the conspiracy and risk everything, or watch irreplaceable cultural heritage vanish forever into private collections. In a case where trust becomes betrayal and allies reveal themselves as enemies, Jamie and Sandra must risk their lives to protect treasures that connect past and future, before the killer silences them permanently. From the mountains of West Virginia to international smuggling networks, Mystery of the Deadly Provenance delivers heart-pounding suspense, complex characters, and the high-stakes world of cultural heritage crime. The seventh installment in the Jamie Blackwood series combines archaeological expertise with pulse-pounding thriller elements that will keep readers guessing until the final revelation. Praise for The Jamie Blackwood Mysteries: "Blackwood combines the intellectual intrigue of archaeological mystery with the heart-pounding action of a thriller. A winning combination." "The West Virginia setting comes alive in these pages, populated by characters so real you'll want to join them for coffee at the Java Bean." "Jamie Blackwood is the archaeologist hero we've been waiting for, complex, flawed, and utterly compelling."