Crown of Serpents — Michael Karpovage

With the discovery of a campaign journal from an American Revolutionary War officer who fought against the Iroquois Indians, the U.S. Army calls in their top field historian to assess its contents. Jake Tununda, combat vet and half-Seneca Indian, is stunned when he gleans from the journal's cryptic Masonic passages clues to the location of an ancient shaman's crown once protected by the White Deer Society, a secret cult of his forefathers. Jake soon realizes why his ancestors' history was best kept buried. And why peaceful, rural central New York's Finger Lakes region can be deadlier than any battlefield he had ever faced. Crown of Serpents, a mystery thriller set in the former heartland of the Iroquois Empire, takes Jake on a fast-paced hunt to find the elusive crown - and protect it. He teams up with Rae Hart, an alluring state police investigator, as they snake their way across a politically turbulent landscape marked with murder, arson, lies, and deceit. Deciphering codes, digging up war loot, and fending off the henchmen of billionaire Alex Nero, a ruthless Indian casino magnate, Jake and Rae's survival skills are put to the test. The clues to the crown ultimately lead them deep within sacred Indian caves hidden under the abandoned Seneca Army Depot where the magnitude of the crown's power is revealed.

Watch for the stand alone sequel, Map of Thieves, in early 2014. Visit Facebook/mapofthieves to learn more.