Tyrannosaur Canyon
Hardcover edition
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| Author | Douglas Preston |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Wyman Ford |
| Genre | Thriller, Science fiction |
| Publisher | Forge Books (Tor) |
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Publication date
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August 11, 2005 |
| Media type | Print, e-book, audiobook |
| Pages | 368 pp. |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 58055113 |
| 813/.54 22 | |
| LC Class | PS3566.R3982 T97 2005 |
| Preceded by | The Codex |
| Followed by | Blasphemy |
Tyrannosaur Canyon is a novel by Douglas Preston published on August 11, 2005 by Forge Books. It is the first book in the Wyman Ford series. The story revolves around the search for a mysterious item buried in the New Mexico desert.
The novel opens with a lunar find by the Apollo 17 astronauts, which is suppressed.
Tom Broadbent (who first appeared in Preston's novel The Codex) is riding in the New Mexico desert when he hears gunshots coming from Tyrannosaur Canyon (a fictional canyon east of the Rio Chama Gorge, on Mesa Viejo, and north of the Monastery of Christ in the Desert). Following the sound, he comes upon an old prospector who has been shot by a sniper. He gives Tom a notebook just before he dies, and Tom rides off on his horse to find help. The murderer, Jimson Maddox, is furious that the notebook is gone by the time he reaches the body; he has been hired to retrieve it at any cost. He does, however, find an interesting rock sample. When Tom returns to Tyrannosaur Canyon with the police, the prospector's body has disappeared without a trace.
The notebook is filled with numbers, a code Tom is unable to decipher. He brings the book to Wyman Ford, a monk in training at a nearby monastery. Ford is a retired CIA analyst and he takes the notebook to try to decipher it. Ford discovers that the numbers are not a code but a sequence of ground-penetrating radar readings. When processed, they form the image of a fully intact Tyrannosaurus.
The rock sample Maddox found turns out to be a fragment of the Tyrannosaurus. Maddox's employer, Iain Corvus, a curator at the American Museum of Natural History, convinces a lab assistant, Melodie Crookshank, to examine the sample in secret. Corvus intends to steal her research, acquire a permit to excavate the Tyrannosaur, and thus secure tenure at the museum, as well as wealth and fame.
Melodie discovers tiny particles within the sample which she calls "Venus particles". Upon making this discovery, Melodie calls Corvus to describe it to him, and the NSA hears the call. They initiate a black op led by J.G. Masago to cover up evidence of the particles, kill any witnesses, and retrieve the specimen.
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