Dark Prospects Series by Lei Xu, 南派三叔

he X-Files meets Indiana Jones in Search for the Buried Bomber, the first in Xu Lei’s Dark Prospects series of thrillers steeped in archeological myths and government secrets. During China’s tumultuous Cultural Revolution, the People’s Liberation Army dispatches an elite group of prospectors famous for their work uncovering rare minerals to the mountains of rural Inner Mongolia... morehe X-Files meets Indiana Jones in Search for the Buried Bomber, the first in Xu Lei’s Dark Prospects series of thrillers steeped in archeological myths and government secrets. During China’s tumultuous Cultural Revolution, the People’s Liberation Army dispatches an elite group of prospectors famous for their work uncovering rare minerals to the mountains of rural Inner Mongolia. Their assignment: to bring honor to their country by descending into a maze of dank caves to find and retrieve the remnants of a buried World War II bomber left by their Japanese enemies. How the aircraft ended up beneath thousands of feet of rock baffles the team, but they’ll soon encounter far more treacherous and equally inexplicable forces lurking in the shadows. Each step taken—and each life lost—brings them closer to a mind-bending truth that should never see the light of day. Pride sent them into the caves, but terror will drive them out.Through the eyes of one of the prospectors, bestselling Chinese author Xu Lei leads readers on a gripping and suspenseful journey. less

"Imagine a Chinese version of Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones series, and you’ve essentially discovered Xu Lei, one of China’s biggest rising stars” – Tor.comThis is the second book of the Dark Prospects Series.In 1962, as post-war China's first generation of geological prospectors, we were ordered to travel to the forests of Inner Mongolia to carry out a mission of national secrecy. Our task: to find a Japanese warplane buried over half a mile underground... more"Imagine a Chinese version of Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones series, and you’ve essentially discovered Xu Lei, one of China’s biggest rising stars” – Tor.comThis is the second book of the Dark Prospects Series.In 1962, as post-war China's first generation of geological prospectors, we were ordered to travel to the forests of Inner Mongolia to carry out a mission of national secrecy. Our task: to find a Japanese warplane buried over half a mile underground. Together with Wang Sichuan, Old Cat and the rest of the team, I descended beneath the earth. There we discovered a sprawling Japanese base from the 1940s, perched on the edge of an endless abyss. As we soon realized, the Japanese had flown a heavy-duty bomber into the void. What were they looking for? To find out, we retrieved the film recording they had taken of the flight.We believed that after watching this terrifying film, we could return to the surface and resume our normal lives. But our superiors had other plans. They ordered us to undertake a new mission. This time the task was suicidal. We were to fly a plane into the abyss, using the same methods as the Japanese. After writing a final letter to our families, we climbed aboard that fatal flight. For me, however, things were different. and I were soon to part, and I knew that somehow this mission might give me the chance to change our fates. Still I had no idea: what kind of ending awaited me in the darkness ahead? My sweetheart Yuan Xile had previously shown me a strange sentence, "Inevitability Begets Inevitability," carved onto the wall of a flooded room.About the AuthorWith over a million subscribers to his microblog and five million books sold, Xu Lei is one of China’s most popular and highest grossing novelists. Born in 1982, he was inspired by his parents’ travel stories to write fanciful tales about tomb raiders, which he then posted online. The series became Secrets of a Grave Robber, which now boasts eight volumes in print, three of which have been published in English. Search for the Buried Bomber, the first book in the Dark Prospects series, was hailed as China’s most spectacular suspense novel of 2010. Xu Lei currently lives in Hangzhou, China. less