VanOps: The Lost Power

BY: AVANTI CENTRAE

Da Vinci Code meets Tomb Raider in this award-winning thriller that #1 NYT’s author James Rollins called, “Full of action and suspense.”

Spain 1057: During a thunderous battle, the first King of Aragon wrestles Alexander the Great’s priceless Egyptian weapon from the Moors, but finds it holds a terrifying and mysterious power.

A thousand years later, on a hushed, fog-shrouded, Napa morning, gunshots and the sound of breaking glass shatter the silence. Maddy Marshall, an app designer and aikido instructor, and her twin brother Will Argones, an engineer, quickly run toward the sound. Horrified, they discover a sniper’s bullet has found its human target.

Before the pool of blood on the living room floor is dry, the twins are sent on an arcane quest to recover Alexander’s ancient weapon. Joined by a VanOps covert agent, they soon discover the rifle’s sights are now set on them. No place is safe, a wrong move means death, and even a simple phone call is off limits if they are to survive.

From a medieval Spanish castle, they follow a time-worn trail, starting at a secret warren under the streets of Jerusalem. But if the killer finds the weapon first, it will be used to cripple the United States’ eye-in-the-sky early warning systems, allowing the Russians to swoop in and prey on the vulnerable nation.

Can Maddy learn to wield the power of the dangerous weapon in time to stop the Russian scheme? Failure means the fragile world peace will be forever shattered…

TAYLOR JONES SAYS: In VanOps: The Lost Power by Avanti Centrae, Maddy Marshall and her twin brother, Will Argones, are summoned to their father’s vineyard in Napa Valley. But when they arrive, they hear gunshots. Their father has been murdered, but before he dies, he sends the twins on a secret quest to find the lost power, a mysterious weapon, that was taken from Alexander the Great by Ramiro 1, the first king of Aragon. But whatever this weapon is, Maddy and Will are not the only ones after it, and even if they find it, they might not live to tell the tale.

Combining history, mystery, and suspense, this is one that fans of many genres should love.

REGAN MURPHY SAYS: VanOps: The Lost Power by Avanti Centrae is the story of a mystical weapon taken from Alexander the Great by Ramiro I, the first king of Aragon, in 1057. Ramiro felt the power of the weapon was too great for any but the most worthy, so he set up a series of trials and tests for his heirs and descendants to complete in order to find the weapon. A thousand years later, two of his descendants, Argones twins Will and Maddy, are sent on a quest to find the weapon by their dying father. But they are pursued by a merciless assassin, leaving a trail of bodies behind them, as they flee from place to place in search of clues to the weapon’s location.

VanOps: The Lost Power is well written, fast paced, and fascinating, mingling a touch of history with an abundance of suspense and wrapping it all up in an intriguing mystery. A really great read.