Books | David R Leng — Echoes of Fortune Series

The Search for Braddock's Lost Gold cover

Book 1

Echoes of Fortune

The Search for Braddock's Lost Gold

Novel Historical Thriller Award-Winning

PenCraft Thriller of the Year 2025 Literary Titan Gold BookFest 2nd Place

In 1755, General Braddock marched into an ambush — and a fortune in gold vanished with him. History moved on. The gold did not.

When Jack Sullivan, a former Army Ranger turned history professor, follows a 270-year-old trail into the hills of southwestern Pennsylvania, he expects a research trip. What he finds instead is proof that Braddock's gold is real — and that someone has been protecting its location for generations. Someone who will kill to keep it hidden.

A taut historical thriller that moves from the Colonial-era wilderness to modern Pittsburgh, The Search for Braddock's Lost Gold launched the Echoes of Fortune series with one of America's oldest unsolved mysteries at its core. Named the 2025 PenCraft Thriller of the Year.

Perfect for fans of Steve Berry, Brad Thor, and Daniel Silva.

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Book 2

Echoes of Fortune

Shadows Over Cozumel

Novella Historical Thriller Free Download

Kirkus "GET It" Pick PenCraft Best Thriller Winter 2026 PenCraft Best Thriller Spring 2026

A Confederate shipwreck. A secret worth killing for. And a family that has spent 160 years making sure no one talks.

Jack, Emma, and Steve are diving the wrecks off Cozumel when they discover the Del Rio — a Confederate vessel that history forgot. Inside her hull, hidden in the ship's own bones, is a brass tube containing orders and financial records that could rewrite the history of Lincoln's assassination.

Within hours, a black yacht is following their dive boat. By nightfall, people are dying.

Kirkus Reviews awarded Shadows Over Cozumel its coveted "GET IT!" designation. PenCraft named it Best Thriller twice in a single year — Winter and Spring 2026. Download it free and find out why.

Perfect for fans of Clive Cussler, James Rollins, and underwater adventure thrillers.

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Book 3

Echoes of Fortune

The Knights of the Golden Circle

Novel Historical Thriller Coming Summer 2026

The Confederacy never truly surrendered. The Knights of the Golden Circle made sure of that.

A coded message in a dead man's safe. A network of Confederate gold caches stretching from Texas to Canada. And a modern conspiracy with enough funding and enough firepower to finish what Jefferson Davis started.

Jack, Emma, and Steve have hunted lost treasure before. They have never hunted something that was actively hunting them back.

The Knights of the Golden Circle is the most ambitious Echoes of Fortune novel yet — a race against a conspiracy 160 years in the making, set against the American heartland and the buried infrastructure of a war that refuses to end.

Short Fiction

Free Short Stories

Standalone stories from the Echoes of Fortune world — and beyond. All free, no email required.

Emma and the Lady in Blue

Before Cozumel. Before Braddock. Emma Wilson and a ghost that refuses to stay buried in a Philadelphia museum.

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The Last Ledger

1865. Richmond is burning. A Treasury clerk carries the last Confederate ledger through a city falling to ash.

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Priya and the Language of Normal

A cyber analyst at a government security firm notices something in the network traffic that shouldn't be able to think.

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Classified

Containment

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A novelette. A government operation gone wrong. And a team that knows too much to be allowed to walk away.

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