The Dig by Brad Taylor, a Mysterious Review.

Review: Pike Logan and his partner Jennifer Cahill get the opportunity to test out their cover as an archaeological research group at a site near Roswell, New Mexico, only to realize that they've stumbled on a top-secret testing facility for new weaponry, in The Dig, a 100-page backstory novella to the Taskforce series of thrillers by Brad Taylor.

The action takes place just after the conclusion of the events of the first book in this series, One Rough Man. Pike is determined to get Jennifer officially included in the Taskforce organization, but she must first pass a rigorous training exercise, one that even Pike himself doesn't believe she will. In the meantime, he has received authorization to set up Grolier Recovery Services to act as a cover for future missions. They have an opportunity to test out how effective the company may be when Jennifer's brother gets them a job examining an area in New Mexico that is about to be flooded with a new dam. They are to determine whether or not there may be artifacts on the site worth preserving. But Pike gets suspicious when they are run off the site by a private security company typically hired by the federal government to secure only the most secretive operations.

The Dig starts off a little slow, spending probably more time than necessary with Pike worrying about Jennifer, to whom he is most definitely attracted. After arriving in New Mexico, the action picks up a bit while making the obligatory play on the US government hiding alien activity in the desert. It's a little weak, to be sure. But once Pike comes to conclude what's really going on based on a key observation made by Jennifer, the intensity picks up with the last half of the story being really quite exciting (if also littered with more than a few damaged bodies courtesy of Pike along the way). These backstory and interstitial novellas — this is the fourth to be published — are a clever way of filling in story arc details, keeping readers invested in the characters and looking forward to the next full-length novel in the series.

Gut Instinct
Dutton (Ebook), July 2013
ISBN-13: 9781101605646; ISBN-10: 1101605642

The Dig

A Pike Logan, Taskforce Short Story by Brad Taylor