Books

Belize, Modern Day

Meg Denton, archaeologist and hieroglyphic savant, joins her mentor and dearest friend, Professor Hugo Calderón, at a largely unexcavated Maya site in Western Belize named Caracol. Upon arrival, she learns he has uncovered clues to the location of the fabled Blue Jade Jaguar: a three-thousand year-old statue of a were-jaguar. Two days later, she finds Hugo hacked to death with a machete, catapulting her into a battle with the shadowy head of the lucrative illegal antiquities trade. Meg’s expectations of a routine dig season evaporate following Hugo’s discovery and subsequent murder. Untested, yet determined, she and a trio of champions set off to battle the well-connected and heavily armed black marketeers. Meg follows five-hundred-year-old clues through dense jungles where vipers drip from the branches and the jaguar calls at night. She dodges bullets, evades arrest, and escapes from kidnappers to claim the Blue Jade Jaguar for its rightful heirs, the modern Maya shaman. To Mayanists, finding this statue is equivalent to finding the Holy Grail, but it’s nothing compared to Balam’s real legacy.