Cradle of Solitude

Rogue Angel #33

by Alex Archer (pseudonym), Joseph Nassise

It was dumb luck that archaeologist Annja Creed happened to be in Paris when the skeletal remains of a Confederate soldier were discovered. This was no ordinary soldier, but the keeper of a treasure that could have affected the outcome of the war. Annja is unraveling a 150-year-old mystery and a trail of clues to the treasure--but she's not the only one. Original.

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Urban Fantasy, Fiction, Audiobook, Action, Paranormal

320 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2011

About the author

A house name for the Rogue Angel series, published by the Harlequin Publishing's Gold Eagle division.

The first eight novels were written by Victor Milan and Mel Odom. New writers joining the series starting with book nine include Jon Merz and Joseph Nassise.

Reviews

[Douglas Larson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the first Alex Archer book I read and I liked it, though I found the number of people who get killed a bit unnerving. There are now more than 40 books in this series, all featuring Aanja Creed as the protagonist, who has inherited the sword of Joan of Arc. The sword has some sort of magical or mystical properties because Aanja keeps it in a nether world and simply mentally summons it and it appears in her hand.
I read somewhere that if you read the series in sequence you gradually learn details about Aanja's life. I haven't done that but now that I have read 4 or 5 of these I can say that not all of them are equally good. Alex Archer is a nom de plume for a collection of about 5 authors, who all write for this series under that pen name.
You can tell the stylistic differences between the different writers and some I like better than others.

I am not planning to read all of the books in the series, though I might read #1, since I would like to learn how Aanja comes into possession of the sword.

[Heather Willson · Rating 5 out of 5]

My fifth Rogue Angel (so glad they dont have to be read in order!). Got my dad hooked with the tie-in to American history

[Susan Beamon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love my purse books, especially this series. I had one of life's joyful happening, a flat tire. There is so much waiting when you have a tire that is no longer round and you don't, won't or my case can't change it on your own. I would have gone nuts with the waiting for the auto club to show if I hadn't had Annja to help me pass the time.
She's still trying to have a vacation, this time in Paris. It seems that a skeleton is found in the catacombs, where there are tons of bones. Only thing is, this skeleton is still wearing clothes. It not the norm for skeletons in the Paris catacombs to still have clothes. The clothes indicate the bones belong to a confederate soldier from the CSA, so the American embassy is called. Annja is asked to go check on the bones and verify identity, so that the embassy can decide if the bones need to be returned to the USA.
Annja is set up for a treasure hunt. Papers with the skeleton suggest the person, when alive, was in France seeking support for the war. This soldier was in charge of the Confederate treasury when the leadership fled Richmond. The treasury disappeared during the evacuation, becoming the Lost Confederate Treasure legend. Could Annja be on the trail of this legend?
There is lots of action ahead. For once, Annja is actually being hunted by the authorities. Garin is also included, although he doesn't do as much as he's done in past books. The crew from Annja's cable show get involved and parts of her adventures are recreated for the program. It was a very good chapter in the series. I liked it very much.

[Paraphrodite · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars.

Yay! Garin is back and this time he and Annja are after a long-lost Confederate treasure and of course, the bad guys are after it as well. We get to learn some of the history of the Civil War, especially the days towards the end.

I don't quite understand why Garin didn't have his people with him. Getting captured and being used as a hostage against Annja is a bit of a stretch, I think.

[Sheila Carsins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic! I love this woman and her conspirators! There's nothing they can't achieve together!

[Kathy Davie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thirty-third in the Rogue Angel urban fantasy series about a sword-wielding archeologist who rights the wrongs. This installment starts in Paris and includes Garin Braden.


My Take
It's the usual for Annja Creed---violence and mayhem, but with an extra dose of brutality and viciousness from the major bad guy. We do discover how Braden has been keeping such excellent track of Annja---it's both a blessing and a curse.

There's always a bit of tension with Garin as you never know if he'll try to kill Annja or help her. In the meantime, there are cryptic clues to solve and a bad guy to elude.

This particular installment was rather irritating in its ending. Too unfinished. I'm hoping there might be some clues as to whether or not anything was found in the next story in the series, Labyrinth .


The Story
A Confederate captain's skeleton is found in a Parisian catacomb and Annja teams up with the good and the sometimes-good to discover the mystery behind his death. It doesn't take long before another interested party blasts their way into the case and Annja is on the run. Nor is it just her life that is threatened!

The FotS is after Annja and the professor and they are a long-time foe of Garin's. Blaine Michaels leads them and he's a vicious bastard. He kills without thought, but Annja thwarts him, naturally.


The Characters
Annja Creed is both an archeologist and a television show host (Chasing History's Monsters) who just happened to bring together the shards of Joan of Arc's sword. It seems Annja may well be an ancestor of Joan's and the sword believes it belongs to her. It certainly does influence Annja in terms of going after the bad guys, providing Annja with more strength, and definitely with faster healing. Doug Morrell is Annja's producer on the TV show and more interested in sensationalism than fact. Professor Bernard Reinhardt is an old friend of Annja's and works at the Museum of Natural History in Paris.

Garin Braden was a squire to the knight in charge of protecting Jeanne d'Arc. When Joan was burned at the stake and her sword broken, a metaphysical event prevented Garin and Roux from dying. Essentially, they are both immortal. Both have put the ensuing centuries to good use building up their fortunes. Now, Garin takes an interest in Annja's adventures, but Annja is never sure if he'll help or hurt for Garin is much too intent upon gaining the sword for himself. Matthew Griggs is a senior operative with Dragontech Security who works for Garin.

Commissaire Laroche of the Police Nationale brings Annja onto the case with Billy Garrison's recommendation. Abbot Deschanel is in charge of the Berceau de Solitude, a Benedictine monastery in the mountains in France. Where the first clue is located.

Captain William Parker was in charge of rescuing the Confederacy's treasury when Sherman was about to enter Richmond during the Civil War. Catherine Daley is the real estate agent showing the Chennault plantation. Jimmy Mitchell rents out his boat for their diving expedition in the Savannah River.

Blaine Michaels is a vicious, brutal sociopath and the current head of the Friends of the South (FotS) and interested to an excessive degree in protecting its secrets.


The Cover
The cover is a collage of the buildings and objects that Annja encounters. Annja is wearing her usual long pants, boots, and a tank top as she holds her sword upright in her right hand and plays a flashlight towards us in her left. Hey, it's dark in the catacombs!

The Cradle of Solitude is a monastery up in the French mountains, but plays a very small part in the story.

[Shelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

*Genre* Science Fiction, Fantasy
*Rating* 3.5

*Review*

Cradle of Solitude finds our heroine Annya Creed on a lost treasure hunt. While in Paris on what seems to be yet another vacation, Annya is asked by the local police to consult in an urgent matter. The locals, it seems, have found the skeletal remains of a Confederate States of America (CSA) Captain by the name of William Parker. Parker somehow ended up dead in an underground catacomb under the streets of Paris and the police want to know how.

As the flashback indicates, Capt Parker was tasked by President Jefferson Davis in the year 1865 to find a hiding place for the Souths treasure of $700,000 so it didn't fall into the North's hands. The North by this time, had pretty much won the war, and was moving quickly to surround Richmond, Virginia. How Parker ended up in Paris is part of the mystery and conspiracy that leads Annya from France to Georgia, to Antietam and Gettysburg.

Annya is not alone in her determination to find the missing treasure. There is an infamous organization called Order of the Golden Phoenix lead by Blaine Michaels, that will do anything to keep the treasure a secret and ensure that nobody knows what really happened to Captain Parker. That means eliminating anyone who comes in contact with it's knowledge and secrets.

Annya once again finds herself deep in mystery, suspense and bloodshed as those she meets along the way, fall by the wayside due to Michaels brutality. Her one companion in this search just happens to be someone that Annya doesn't quite trust; Garin Braden. Garin always seems to find a way to beat Annya to the treasure, and this time is no different. Garin also reveals a secret that Annya has been wondering about for years; How in the hell does he know where I am all the time?

I can't believe I've read 30 plus books in this series and I'm STILL not caught up with the series! This book was more interesting and fun than previous installments. I have been a history buff since a very small age, and when it comes to the Civil War, I'm an addict pure and simple. It's not because I liked the war or the devastation it caused. It's because it shows that this country has come a very long way since it's founding and we still have problems to deal with.

I like the fact that this particular author didn't try to sugar coat the war between the states. I like the fact that this author also uses historical characters like President Jefferson Davis of the CSA, and many of this officers in order to tell the tale.

I liked the revelation that the Order, or Friends of the South, was actually planning on betraying the South and making it one of their colonies in order to have easy access to cotton. If you allow your imagination to roam freely, you can really see that point of view happening. The only surprise is the fact that, to my knowledge, neither England nor France tried to invade the US during this brutal war in an effort to take back their colonies or territories.

I read this series because it's a cross between National Treasure, and Indiana Jones. The series is about a character is given the opportunity by fate to be a change for good, instead of evil. Annya still has issues and is still not sure of who to trust including Gavin Braden who once again appears in the story only to steal the spotlight away from Annya.

I read this series hoping that Annya will finally come to the realization that she can't go running around the world any longer hoping that she won't be recognized as the holder of Joan of Arc's legendary sword. How can she? She's front and center of Chasing History's Monsters, and she gets in trouble each and every time she tries to dig up the truth behind missing secrets.

Next in the series: Labyrinth (Rogue Angel #34)

[Lianne Burwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Cradle of Solitude is basically a heist novel. The body of a Confederate soldier who was involved in smuggling the CSA treasury to safety is found in the catacombs under Paris. Anja, who is in town, gets pulled in to examine the body, and ends up an the hunt to find the treasure before a secret organization that was behind the long-dead Captain's death can get to it.

All in all, I had a lot of fun with this book. I just had one minor quibble. One assumes that the Captain died not long after the Civil War, although a man pretending to be him died at the age of 70. One of the clues left by the Captain to lead his friend to the treasure (left before he died) says to dig up a chest buried in his doppleganger's grave, with a clue to where that grave would be. How he managed to arrange that the chest would be buried in the grave, and where the grave would be, when presumably the other man died years, if not decades, after him, isn't stated. As well, what if the person the clues were addressed to got them before the doppleganger even died? It was the books 'Rosebud' moment (in Citizen Kane, the man dies alone in a room, so how does anyone know what his last word -- the driving point of the movie -- is?)

I also had to wonder just how Anja got out of trouble with the cops after the events of the book (and by this point she should be flagged by every country she has entered, considering how often she ends up in trouble that involves dead bodies).

Still, a fun summer read.

[LillyBooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

I stumbled across this book while looking for an ebook to check out from the library, and it was billed as sort of Indiana Jones or Laura Croft adventure. It sounded fun. After reading it, I would more say it is a National Treasure Extra Light. There is only one "riddle" in the book to solve (although the protagonist draws it out by breaking in down into sections), and I feel certain Indiana Jones would have solved it in just under an hour especially with the use of the Internet. I also found this book to be extremely violent. I suppose the Indiana Jones movies are violent, too, but the descriptions of the incredibly frequent fights here go on for pages. I mostly skipped them; I didn't need a play-by-play especially as I knew our protagonist would survive. I didn't hate this book; it was light, easy, fast, and mindless, and occasionally one needs just such book (like when flying, for example). However, I didn't find it mentally stimulating at all, so I probably won't read another.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cradle of Solitude is fun, light adventure fare. It has a great deal in common with pulp adventure, and the parallels to Lara Croft are obvious. There is an element of fantasy- Annja has a magic sword- but in this book, its importance is limited and everything else about the story is straight-up contemporary adventure (think National Treasure with a body count). I'd probably enjoy the series more without the fantasy element, but it's so minor that it didn't ruin the story for me. This isn't the sort of book that will ever win critical acclaim, but if a light adventure in the vein of Indiana Jones, National Treasure, Tomb Raider, and Doc Savage is what you're looking for, you'll find Cradle of Solitude an amusing diversion. The one negative is the ending, which feels unfinished. I won't spoil it, but it's almost as if the editor told the author, "We need to cut 5,000 words off this book. Let's chop out the last two chapters and end it with a quick wrap-up." Otherwise, a fun book.

[John Hanscom · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, but only OK. This series is written by several authors, using the Archer name, as with Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene. This was fairly exciting, but it repeated some of the previous books (an alligator in stead of a shark, but the same action), and had a "deus ex machina" ending.

[T.S. · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a mens adventure series the Rogue angel series is a good one. However, I think that the good stuff is gone from this series. The plot is good but the story is getting very predictable. Just how many World conspiracies are there?

[Ankt · Rating 4 out of 5]

a good enjoyable book. I would have liked a little more detail. I just wish they wouldn't wrap up so fast.

[C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up on the advice of a Trucker during my road trip. Hoky but entertaining in that it helped the 13 hour ride go by

[Cindy]

Great adventure. LOVED that Garin was along for the ride. These books are so much more fun when either he or Roux are involved. Even better if both are. Action packed.

[Laurla2]

-I only recently found out this series has been written by multiple authors. so for my notes I enjoyed this one by joe natisse.

[Brian Grouhel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Standard Rogue Angel! Never fails to entertain and always delivers a good story!