Gideon Crew, the hero of Preston and Child’s new novel, has a complicated backstory. As a boy, he watched as his father, who had taken a man hostage, was shot down by a sniper. Less than a decade later, he learned from his mother that his father had been used by the U.S. government as a scapegoat for a failed intelligence project. After dispatching the man responsible for his father’s murder, Gideon is offered a job with a private contractor that does hush-hush work for the government.
A young man in his teens is transported from our world to a magical realm that contains seven levels of reality. Very quickly transformed by magic into a grown man of heroic proportions, he takes the name Abel and sets out on a quest to find the sword that has been promised to him, a sword he will get from a dragon, the one very special blade that will help him fulfill his life ambition to become a knight and a true hero.
Banished for the sin of mercy, Severian, one of the ancient guild of Torturers, flees from exile. In a mountain wilderness he meets the Alzabo, in whom those eaten seem to live on, adopts as son only to lose him in battle, discharges an old debt to vengeance, encounters fanged aliens who hide behind masks of beauty, and helps the people of the floating islands in their unending battle for freedom.
In this exciting and page-turning thriller we are introduced to Gideon Crew, star of the brand new Preston and Child series. At the tender age of twelve, Gideon Crew witnessed the brutal murder of his father, a scientist wrongly framed by the US government, and shot down by police during a hostage crisis. More than twenty years later, Gideon finally gets his revenge and fulfills the promise that he made to his mother on her death bed to clear their family name. He brings down the man who destroyed his father. But then a mysterious witness steps forward to confront Gideon on his crime - and to offer him the chance of a lifetime...
A mystery that spans the past A conspiracy that lives on in the heart of an ancient order... Army Ranger Lt. Col. John Holliday had resigned himself to ending his career teaching at West Point. When his uncle passes away, Holliday discovers a medieval sword-wrapped in Adolf Hitler's personal battle standard. But when someone burns down his uncle's house in an attempt to retrieve the sword, Holliday realizes that he's being drawn into a war that has been fought for centuries-a war in which he may be the next casualty.
