Book 1

Horizontal Man

by Michael Dahl and Dahl

Published 1 August 1999
I DON'T KNOW WHY I FELT SICK. I MEAN, YES, IT WAS THE FIRST DEAD BODY I EVER SAW. BUT I SHOULD HAVE BEEN MORE COMFORTABLE. AFTER ALL, MY WHOLE FAMILY LIKES DEAD THINGS....
Thirteen-year-old Finnegan Zwake is staying with his Uncle Stoppard, a bestselling mystery writer, and still hoping his parents will return from an archaeological expedition in Iceland. They disappeared there several years ago.
Life with his uncle is fairly normal -- until the day Finn discovers a body in the basement. A dead body. It's in the storage area where Finn's parents left behind gold treasure from their last expedition. And missing from the storage space is a magnificent Mayan gold figure, the Horizontal Man....

Book 2

The Worm Tunnel

by Michael Dahl

Published 1 January 1999
Finnegan, his uncle Stoppard, and their friend Jared are off to an archeological dig in Aguilar, land of giant cacti, jungles, and dinosaurs. Dead ones, that is. While Finn and his uncle are digging up treasure, the crew is digging up very valuable dinosaur egg. But digging too deeply can stir up trouble, not to mention a murder, or two, or three...

Book 3

The Ruby Raven

by Michael Dahl

Published 1 December 1999
Traveling to Occo with his uncle to attend a mysterydom award ceremony, young Finn becomes skeptical of the author nominees as strange, life-threatening events keep occurring.

Finn and his mystery writer uncle are off to exotic Occo, located between Lesser Occo and Morocco. Uncle Stoppard has been nominated for the most prestigious award in mysterydom: the Ruby Raven. The grand prize? One million dollars, as well as a dark, carved bird with real rubies for eyes and a ruby pendant dangling from its neck.

Even with all of the excitement of Uncle Stoppard’s nomination, Finn starts getting nervous. There was a strange car that exploded just as they were leaving the airport, and a Moroccan cobra that was slithering in his room when he arrived…. Is it a coincidence? Or could one of the invited authors be too eager to win the bucks and the bird?

Book 4

The Viking Claw

by Michael Dahl

Published 1 July 2001
Finn and his mystery-writer uncle head to Iceland in search of the Haunted City of Tquuli, where Finn's archaeologist parents were last seen before their odd disappearance eight years ago. Finn doesn't believe the creepy legends about the Haunted City and the ancient Vikings who lived there -- until a member of the rock-climbing expedition vanishes from inside a sleeping bag...one that was dangling a hundred feet from the base of an icy cliff!

Then another climber disappears, leaving a trail of footprints that abruptly end in a field of snow. Is it modern-day murder, or the revenge of phantom Viking warriors?

Book 5

The Coral Coffin

by Michael Dahl

Published 1 January 2002
"WHAT IS THE TURTLE'S NAME?"

"MY NAME'S FINN," I SAID.

THE PIRATES GASPED.

THE GIANT PEERED DOWN AT ME. I FELT LIKE A BUG UNDER HER BOOT. "FINN," SHE SAID. "A GOOD NAME FOR SOMEONE WHO WILL JOIN THE FISH."

Swept overboard during a thunderstorm in the South Seas, thirteen-year-old Finn lands on a tropical island, with palm trees, nesting turtles, beautiful sunsets, and...a dead body. Finn and his famous mystery-writer Uncle Stoppard traveled to the Great Barrier Reef in search of Finn's long-missing archaeologist parents. Instead they are both picked up by a ship full of fierce modern-day pirates and their fearless female leader, Blue Jade.

No sooner are Finn and his uncle onboard when mayhem breaks loose: someone is secretly poisoning the crew members, one by one. Furious, Blue Jade gives Finn and Uncle Stop twenty-four hours to find the killer and prove their own innocence. Otherwise they will face her deadly pets Mittens and Fluffy, two man-killing blue-ringed octopuses....