Dane and Bones

Somewhere off a forgotten reef a diver breaks the surface holding a relic that a great many powerful people would kill to keep buried. For Dane Maddock, that is a Tuesday. A former Navy SEAL turned treasure hunter, Maddock and his motor-mouthed Cherokee partner Uriah "Bones" Bonebrake chase the legends the history books swear are settled — lost gold, drowned cities, artifacts wired into the myths of half the world — and find, every single time, that someone deadlier got there first. Built by David Wood and a crew of collaborators, this is a treasure-hunter universe assembled the way pulp always is: fast, prolific, and spun off in every direction. The flagship Dane Maddock Adventures carries the main line; Dane Maddock Origins fills in the pair's early exploits, while Bones Bonebrake Adventures turns the wisecracking sidekick loose on his own. Around them orbit the Elementals, the Destination Adventures, the Dragon Cycle, and the open-door Dane Maddock Universe, where hands such as Sean Ellis, Rick Chesler, Edward G. Talbot, and Matt James run their own expeditions through the same shark-thick waters. The pleasures are old and reliable: a relic, a rival, a rising body count, a globe crossed at a dead sprint, and Bones deflating every solemn moment with a grin. Wood writes his dives and firefights with the specificity of a man who has been both underwater and under fire, and the mysteries stay grounded even when the maps run off into monsters. Newcomers should start with Dourado, the first Dane Maddock Adventure — the Origins novellas read as prequels but land hardest once you already know the crew.