The Artifact 1

The Artifact, Book 1

By: Joshua T. Calvert

Narrated by: Adam Verner

Buried secrets. Faceless killers. And a relic that was never meant to be found.

Deep beneath the Pyramid of the Sun, archaeologist Charles Bowen and his protege Marcus Brown uncover an artifact that rewrites history—and paints a target on their backs. Within hours, killers strike. Charles is dead. Marcus is on the run. Hunted by the GBI, shadowy operatives, and the Mexican authorities, Marcus must unravel the truth about the relic—and the secret it holds about his own past.

Some discoveries weren't meant to be unearthed. And some secrets will kill to stay buried.

©2025 Joshua T. Calvert (P)2026 Podium Audio

Underwhelming

The story was dull and drawn out uncharacteristic for this author. The narration was absolutely horrible. It is such a big part of audiobooks. Perhaps the story could’ve been a little bit more palatable with a different narrator. The narrator struggled with different characters voices and I had to force myself to finish the audiobook.

Not worth it

The MC is a college kid who off and on during the book, sobs, considers giving up and just falling down, sets up others to be killed to save himself (and then whines he had to see the dead bodies) and makes the stupidest decisions ever. The secondary character’s are FBI agents, one of which is a woman who, when suspended by her boss for her incompetence, plays victim and decides the boss is a misogynist, etc etc (all the liberal words). MC on his journey to save himself, encourages “immigrants’ to run across the boarder because nobody has the right to stop them. Also the bad guys in this book are Patriots (says it outright). The only interesting character is the other FBI agent who is autistic and is smarter than the rest of the characters. Story spends 25% time on the actual mystery and the rest on character thoughts and stupid decisions. Had an hour left, and was hoping someone would just shoot the college kid when I skipped to the end just to be done with the stupidity. And…….of course it seems it’ll be a sequel.