JAMES ACTON

James Acton is a professor of Archeology.

He is not a spy. Would never want to be a spy. Has no interest in the affairs of spies or their spy-masters. He does not want to get involved in the messes that governments often create for themselves and has no desire to spend too much time with the operatives and soldiers and, even worse, politicians who invariably justify these messes with fancy words. He wants to be left to dig into history.

Too bad nobody seems to care what James Acton wants.

Acton is not a liberal academician who wanders around an ivy-covered campus. He is constantly out in the real world, or at least passing through it en route some ancient landmark. He knows how the big boys do things and a time or two he might actually be grateful for some of their interference.

By and large, though, whenever he is pulled into, stumbles upon, backs up onto, or otherwise falls smack dab in the middle of things, people start shooting at him, trying to blow him up, throwing sharp objects at him, or pushing buttons that could explode nuclear weapons.

This is not the life the 40-year old archaeologist was expecting as the head of the Archeology Department at St. Paul's University of Maryland. He was a respected researcher, one who had been published on several occasions in major magazines and had been written about in National Geographic. Sure, he had some military training when he, as a younger man, was a member of his state's National Guard and he knows which end of the rifle painful things come out but he did not seek the action he would invariably and fairly constantly find.

Joining him on his many involuntary excursions into danger is Dr. Laura nee Palmer Action, a woman who is, if anything, even more renown than her husband. She holds several degrees, including Archeology, Ancient History and Literature. She has been a major player at the British Museum for well over a decade and has been invited to lecture all over Europe and North America.

In the first adventure Acton had, they met and kept each other alive. The relationship grew quickly and soon they were engaged and then married. This is a very good thing for Acton's life expectancy because while there is some question about her driving ability, her keen intellect meshes well with his and together they make a pretty impressive pair.

If you like adventure, you will certainly like James and Laura Acton tales. They are full of lots of exciting escapades, near-misses, explosions, dangers, and dramas. These are good things for we readers. If you have trouble keeping track of several different sets of players each with their own agendas, you might have difficulty with this series but take it slow and you won't get hurt. And you will enjoy the ride.

The James Acton series is connected loosely with the Dylan Kane series that I really liked a lot. Kane considers Acton a mentor in many ways and more than one character from one series will make guest appearances in the other. I always like that and the author handles it beautifully.