The Explorer's Code (Paperback)

Kitty Pilgrim has worked for CNN for twenty-four years as a correspondent and anchor, specializing in international affairs. Her years of travel on international assignment provide experiences and information that she used to craft this exciting thriller, reminiscent of the high-stakes adventures of a James Bond novel.

When the prominent young oceanographer, Cordelia Stapleton, is invited to a glamorous gala in Monaco, she has no idea her life is about to change. Wealthy philanthropist and dashing archaeologist, John Sinclair, presents her with a posthumous award for her great great-grandfather, Elliot Stapleton, who was a famous Victorian polar explorer, and with Stapleton’s personal journal from 1908. Cordelia learns she is heir to a missing land deed—a valuable document that is also sought by consortium of underworld criminals.

Cordelia and John Sinclair team up to search for the deed in some of the most sophisticated and romantic places in the world—the principality of Monaco, a Mediterranean voyage on the Queen Victoria ocean liner, a lavish country estate outside of London, and a palatial apartment in Paris. Chased by a gang of ruthless killers, the search continues to exotic locales including the archaeological ruins of Ephesus, Turkey, and the high arctic archipelago of Svalbard, Norway. Along the way Cordelia and Sinclair encounter a team of British virologists trying to decode the genome of the 1918 pandemic, a Russian oligarch and his entourage, a famous supermodel, a world champion fencer, and a cult of religious fanatics. Filled with high adventure, elegant lifestyle, and international intrigue, The Explorer’s Code is a welcome addition to the successful tradition of romantic thrillers.