Gideon's Sword

Introducing Gideon Crew: trickster, prodigy, master thief.

GIDEON'S SWORD

At twelve, Gideon Crew witnessed his father, a world-class mathematician, accused of treason and gunned down.

At twenty-four, summoned to his dying mother's bedside, Gideon learned the truth: His father was framed and deliberately slaughtered. With her last breath, she begged her son to avenge him.

Now, with a new purpose in his life, Gideon crafts a one-time mission of vengeance, aimed at the perpetrator of his father's destruction. His plan is meticulous, spectacular, and successful.

But from the shadows, someone is watching. A very powerful someone, who is impressed by Gideon's special skills. Someone who has need of just such a renegade.

For Gideon, this operation may be only the beginning . . .

"Preston and Child's first in a new thriller series falls short of their usual high standard. In 1996, eight years after 12-year-old Gideon Crew saw his father, an employee of the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command, fatally shot outside his father's Arlington, Va., office, his mother tells him the truth about the killing on her death bed. The older Crew was made the scapegoat for the deaths of 26 spies for the U.S. the Russians caught as a result of a flaw in a new intelligence encryption standard he discovered but higher authority ignored. In the present, Gideon's quest for revenge takes a backseat to an assignment from shadowy Effective Engineering Solutions (introduced in 2001's The Ice Limit), whose people succeed in recruiting Gideon to steal plans for what might be a new Chinese megaweapon from a defecting scientist. That tired and predictable story line isn't helped by a protagonist lacking the quirks of the authors' popular series hero, FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast. (Feb.)" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright PWyxz LLC)

"A rollicking tour-de-force. Preston and Child have crafted an electrifying, riveting thriller on which I could continue to heap praise, but instead I will just offer this: Read the book!" David Baldacci

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are coauthors of the bestselling novels Relic, Mount Dragon, Reliquary, Riptide, Thunderhead, The Ice Limit, The Cabinet of Curiosities, Still Life with Crows, Brimstone, Dance of Death, The Book of the Dead, The Wheel of Darkness, Cemetery Dance, and Fever Dream.

Preston's bestselling nonfiction book, The Monster of Florence, is being made into a major motion picture. His interests include horses, scuba diving, skiing, and exploring the Maine coast in an old lobster boat.

Lincoln Child is a former book editor who has published four bestselling novels of his own. He is passionate about motorcycles, exotic parrots, and nineteenth-century English literature. The authors welcome email from their readers; visit their website at www.prestonchild.com