Relics of the Fallen, by Nick Nethery, is the first book in what promises to be an engaging, character driven series that has just enough action and tension to keep you turning pages.

Dan Kelly, a battle-hardened Army bomb tech on the brink of retirement, can’t shake the ghosts of his fallen team from a long-ago war zone. When a shadowy government outfit called Wormwood recruits him, he’s thrust into a world of enigmatic weapons—artifacts of unearthly power, scattered across Earth like forgotten relics. Alien remnants? Echoes of a vanished human empire? Wormwood hunts for answers, but they’re not alone; darker forces crave these devices for chaos.
As Dan grapples with tech that warps reality and inflicts unseen wounds, he uncovers a chilling link to his past tragedy. From cartel tunnels beneath the border to high-stakes raids on illicit arms hubs, missions blur the line between duty and vengeance. A leak within threatens everything, forcing Dan to root out betrayal before a final assault where old enemies await.
In this gritty fusion of military precision and otherworldly mystery, redemption comes at a price—one explosive secret at a time.

Nethery does an excellent job at painting Dan, EOD tech, father, and all around good man, in intricate detail without resorting to an infodump.

The other characters, his wife, coworkers, and friends, fill out a world that is just one step away from our own. If you’ve ever served in a small military unit or something similar, you’ll get the dynamics easily.

The story flows easily and quickly. This is more than a shoot-em-up military adventure, but has a lot of the good elements of military fiction.

Overall, this is an excellent introduction to the author’s work and a great beginning to what I hope is a long-lived series.