A Emma Fielding mystery. Interesting, and yet kind of eh, all at the same time. I'm really not a very good audience for murder mysteries, and this was no exception. I started it because I was intrigued by the premise of an archaeologist who specializes in early colonial New England, but there wasn't enough of that to keep me interested.

Emma Fielding is an untenured assistant professor of archaeology at Caldwell College. She is hoping that her summer dig at the site of Fort Providence which predates Jamestown will earn her that tenure, but someone seems to be out to sabotage her work. She finds a body along the beach. She confronts someone tampering with the site. More unfolds as she continues her work. I found this to be one of the better cozies I've read in quite a while. Emma is an intelligent character. The sheriff is not depicted as a buffoon. Emma has a respect for him. I even liked some of the other characters in the book, particularly the student Meg McGarrity. I look forward to reading others in this series in the future. ( )

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. ( )