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Former CIA officer Robert Baer, whose experiences in the Middle East inspired the film Syriana, makes his fiction debut with Blow the House Down, an alternative history to 9/11 that weaves fact and fiction into an intriguingly plausible version of the tragic attacks. The story is replete with money-hungry businessmen, sinister terrorists, rogues, righteous agents and the requisite beautiful woman. In short, there are the good guys, the bad guys and the worse guys.

The hero of Baer’s book is Max Waller, a middle-aged CIA agent with an ex-wife, a teenage daughter and a singular obsession: finding the terrorists responsible for the real-life kidnapping and murder of fellow agent William Buckley. Buckley, the CIA chief of station in Beirut, was kidnapped in 1984 and subjected to torture and interrogation for 444 days before dying in captivity. Max, always regarded as a lone wolf, sticks his nose under the wrong tent and finds himself on the outside looking in. His own people are following him, the FBI is making a case against him and he is being set up to take a huge fall, one that will force him out of the agency and possibly into prison. But Max hasn’t spent two decades in obscure parts of the world working with shady people without learning a thing or two. With his finger curled around the thread of a mystery, he pulls, and slowly unravels a connection between the U.S., Iran, Osama bin Laden and the eventual 9/11 hijackers. Max flits from one godforsaken Middle East hotspot to the next, growing increasingly disturbed by what he finds something is going to happen and it will be big. Most troubling, the powers-that-be are not only ignoring his warnings, but also seem to be going out of their way to shut him up.

Baer mixes real events and characters among his fictional creations. While the tragedy of 9/11 has recently begun to crop up in literary fiction, this is one of its incipient starring roles in the popular fiction genre. Baer treats the subject with respect in this thoughtful page-turner. Ian Schwarz writes from New York City.

Former CIA officer Robert Baer, whose experiences in the Middle East inspired the film Syriana, makes his fiction debut with Blow the House Down, an alternative history to 9/11 that weaves fact and fiction into an intriguingly plausible version of the tragic attacks. The story…
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Given the volcanic sales of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, it’s understandable that he’s chosen to retread many of that book’s conventions and plot devices for The Lost Symbol. Once again Brown’s protagonist, the Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, must unlock a series of fiendishly cryptic puzzles to keep world chaos at bay, all the while confronting, within the span of a single day, a self-mutilating but endlessly resourceful villain, a powerful secret society (the Freemasons) and a well-meaning but obstructionist law-enforcement agency (the CIA). And again Langdon is accompanied in his frantic flights from danger by a woman who’s both attractive and academically worthy of him. The action takes place in and around some of Washington, D.C.’s grandest architectural treasures, among them the Capitol, the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress.

When he’s not assuming other identities, the villain Langdon faces calls himself Mal’akh. He is truly a terrifying foe, rich, muscular, merciless and tattooed from head to toe. Having insinuated himself into the highest rank of Masons, his mission is to discover and expose the organization’s deepest and most socially disruptive secrets. To prevent this, Langdon has to rescue a friend who Mal’akh has kidnapped and is torturing for information. Alas, the CIA is also onto Mal’akh and is determined to keep Langdon from messing things up.  All the action proceeds from these entanglements. At times, the book reads like an episode of the TV series "24."

Building psychologically complex characters is not Brown’s strong suit, nor need it be since he’s essentially writing genre fiction. But he does create a memorable one in the diminutive person of Inoue Sato, head of the CIA’s Office of Security. A survivor of the Nisei internment camps of World War II, she is pure chain-smoking, command-snapping venom. She steals every scene she’s in. Langdon also takes a Tom Clancy turn here, equipping the CIA commandos with all manner of high-tech weapons which should make Langdon’s escapes impossible but don’t. When Langdon isn’t running for his life, he’s tossing off tutorials on myth, history and religion. Seldom has unrelieved mayhem been so instructive.

There’s not much tension-relieving humor in The Lost Symbol, but there is one spot in which Brown seems to be poking fun at himself and his delay in finishing the manuscript for this book. Langdon calls his editor to get a phone number and nimbly parries the editor’s questions about when he’s going to meet his deadline. After Langdon hangs up, the editor “stared at the receiver and shook his head. Book publishing would be so much easier without the authors.

Well, it was worth the wait.

Given the volcanic sales of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, it’s understandable that he’s chosen to retread many of that book’s conventions and plot devices for The Lost Symbol. Once again Brown’s protagonist, the Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, must unlock a series of fiendishly…

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Maggie Wilson remembered what happened that night she was left for dead. Her then-husband Nate came home drunk. She could see him in the doorframe still, raising his hand to strike her. She never doubted that memory. But then, five years later, someone else confessed to the attack.

This gripping first novel by Paul Jaskunas reads like a memoir as he captures the earnest voice of this beautiful young woman, turned into the village freak by the savage attack. Her testimony sent Nate to prison, and Maggie, now 28, must consider that she might have misremembered. Maybe it wasn’t her husband after all. Maybe that powerful memory was false.

Tautly written, Hidden opens with Maggie’s description of the scene when the police arrive and find her unconscious and bleeding on the floor of their farmhouse near the picturesque Utopian community of New Harmony, Indiana. The reader gradually learns much about Maggie: how she happened to marry so young, and how she came to violate her marriage vows with a co-worker; how she wants to lose herself. “Mine is a secretive country,” Maggie says. “It was settled by people who came here to hide.” Supporting characters come off well in this novel, and that’s what keeps it compelling. Manny, the 78-year-old neighbor Maggie drinks gin with is as memorable as her tedious, devoted mother, or Nate, who makes the mistake of taking his domineering father for a role model.

No simple story of good and evil, this novel keeps you guessing. Jaskunas, who is himself an epileptic, gives convincing descriptions of the seizures Maggie undergoes following her injuries. He tells how seizures feel from the inside. In fact, Hidden is a well-told story of what an experience like Maggie’s would feel like from the inside how it might feel to no longer trust your memory. Anne Morris is a reviewer from Austin, Texas.

Maggie Wilson remembered what happened that night she was left for dead. Her then-husband Nate came home drunk. She could see him in the doorframe still, raising his hand to strike her. She never doubted that memory. But then, five years later, someone else confessed…
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Making a move that is guaranteed to delight his fans, John Grisham returns to form with his first legal thriller in three years, The Appeal.

The novel finds Grisham in familiar territory—the courtroom—but it begins in an unconventional way: with the end. When the verdict is announced in the novel's first chapter, readers are immediately thrown into the case and the controversy that surrounds it. The husband-and-wife legal team of Wes and Mary Grace Payton is representing Jeannette Baker in an effort to prove that her son and husband died as a result of contaminated water. On the other side of this battle is the chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste into the water supply. After a protracted trial and agonizing deliberations, the jury finally delivers its verdict. The chemical company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, though lawyers don't anticipate a favorable outcome. Enter Wall Street billionaire and chemical company owner Carl Trudeau, who purchases a court seat with pocket change—a few million dollars. The fate of the case is left up to the nine state Supreme Court justices, one of whom is ensnared in conspiracy. The judicial system may never be viewed in quite the same way again.

Grisham's literary dynasty and avid fan following have been built on his remarkable ability to produce a blockbuster novel every year, nine of which have been turned into feature films. Beginning with 1991's The Firm, his second novel and first big success, Grisham established his place in thriller history by writing suspenseful tales about the judicial system. Fans have come to expect frequent twists and turns that leave them on the edge of their armchairs.

Though Grisham has made successful detours from this formula recently, with the comic novel Playing for Pizza and his first nonfiction work, The Innocent Man, his return to the legal fiction realm is an event long anticipated by both avid readers and Grisham himself. "I still enjoy writing the legal thrillers," Grisham has said of his latest book, "and don't plan to get too far away from them. Obviously, they have been very good to me, and they remain popular. I plan to write one a year for the next several years." Grisham, who turns 53 this month, has more than 225 million books in print worldwide, and his work has been translated into 29 languages. A decade ago, Publishers Weekly estimated that Grisham's earnings had made him a billion-dollar man. Not bad for someone who began writing as a hobby. The Arkansas native and Ole Miss-educated author's pastime evolved into a career—though only 5,000 initial copies were printed of his 1988 debut A Time to Kill, which took him three years to write—after years of practicing law. His detailed mastery of the legal genre, which focuses on lawyers and their associates, is due in part to his personal understanding of the legal system.

Grisham's most recent appearance in a courtroom came in 1996, when he honored a long-standing commitment to represent the family of a railroad brakeman killed in an accident. A jury awarded the family more than $600,000 in the case. Grisham, who served in the Mississippi legislature during the 1980s, retains a keen interest in politics (he hosted an early fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in 2007) but says he has no intention of running for office again. "I enjoy watching and participating in politics from the sidelines, but it's best to keep some distance," he says.

Bookstore patrons and moviegoers may find it difficult to keep their distance from the nonstop writer—and who'd want to?—but there is little risk of a complete Grisham overload: Though his work can be found on the bookshelves and the big screen, don't expect to catch him pitching Gillette razors while you're flipping channels. The intensely private author continues to refuse offers of personal appearances and sponsorship, and he seems to live a tranquil life. He and his family divide their time between a home in Mississippi and a plantation near Charlottesville, Virginia, remaining largely out of the public eye. This eagerly anticipated return to the genre that made Grisham a household name is another page-turning installment from start to finish. A verdict has been reached: The people are craving another Grisham legal thriller.

Making a move that is guaranteed to delight his fans, John Grisham returns to form with his first legal thriller in three years, The Appeal.

The novel finds Grisham in familiar territory—the courtroom—but it begins in an unconventional way: with the end. When the verdict is…

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Memorial Day is traditionally a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service, but in Vince Flynn’s newest Mitch Rapp novel (Transfer of Power, The Third Option, Separation of Power, etc.), the peaceful May holiday will include much more than morning parades and afternoon barbecues. Memorial Day is the target date for undercover al-Qaeda operatives in the States to detonate a nuclear bomb in the nation’s capital during a dedication ceremony for the new WWII memorial. Their target: the president, leaders of Great Britain and Russia, and a few hundred thousand ill-fated infidels.

Counter-terrorism operative Mitch Rapp has one helluva score to settle. A Syracuse University All-American lacrosse player who lost the love of his life in the Pan Am Lockerbie terrorist attack in 1988, Rapp’s thirst for vengeance led him to dedicate his life to fighting terrorism by any means necessary.

Now decades later, Rapp (an amalgam of John Wayne, General George Patton and Dirty Harry) has a potential disaster on his hands. After a clandestine raid on a village on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border nets Rapp some high-ranking al-Qaeda leaders, he learns of a plot to transport a nuclear weapon into the States. But after Rapp takes his shocking findings to his boss, CIA director Irene Kennedy, and later, the president, he finds himself quickly embroiled in political claptrap. As precious hours tick away, self-righteous politicians bicker about how to handle the imminent disaster. Meanwhile, sleeper cells are becoming active and terrorists are converging on Washington, D.C., with a bomb that could turn the nation’s capital into a radioactive wasteland. In usual Mitch Rapp fashion, he takes matters into his own hands.

Flynn’s protagonist is reminiscent of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan and Dale Brown’s Patrick McLanahan: all are extremely intelligent, incredibly focused, unwaveringly patriotic loose cannons that readers can’t help but root for. And that essentially describes Memorial Day: a highly intelligent read that is virtually impossible to put down. Paul Goat Allen is a writer in Syracuse, New York.

Memorial Day is traditionally a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service, but in Vince Flynn's newest Mitch Rapp novel (Transfer of Power, The Third Option, Separation of Power, etc.), the peaceful May holiday will include much more than morning…
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In the elaborate thriller Labyrinth, two women mysteriously linked across eight centuries take up the quest to find the legendary Holy Grail and guard its secrets against those who would use its power for evil ends. Author Kate Mosse spins an exciting tale of intrigue and peril, with female characters who don’t wait for men to lead. With valor and cunning, they plunge headlong into the eternal search for truth.

First up is Alice Tanner, who makes a surprise find while helping with an archeological dig in the mountains of southwest France near the historic city of Carcassonne. Drawn by an odd sense of familiarity, she discovers a cave with startling contents: two battered skeletons and a ring bearing an arcane design of a labyrinth that matches a larger carving on the cave wall. Next the action moves to Carcassonne in the year 1209, where Ala•s fears for her people as crusaders from northern France approach, ready to wipe out the supposed heresy of the Cathar Christians prevalent in the region. When her father faces service in their defense, he asks her to help protect an ancient grail secret he has sworn to guard. Mosse deftly weaves the two women’s stories together like a medieval tapestry, developing suspense as she moves from one era to the other with exquisitely devised parallels, the well-researched background providing depth and color. She deserves special kudos for her imaginative take on the grail itself. Mosse touches on themes made popular by Dan Brown’s Da Vince Code the grail, the history and legends of France. While Brown bows to history, Mosse immerses her story in it. She has a home in Carcassonne, and her novel shows her intimate familiarity with the ghosts and landscapes of the area. A bestseller in Britain, Labyrinth is Mosse’s third novel, and her first to be published in the U.S. It’s an exciting read, especially for those who love strong female protagonists, history and epic adventure. Janet Fisher writes from southwest Oregon.

In the elaborate thriller Labyrinth, two women mysteriously linked across eight centuries take up the quest to find the legendary Holy Grail and guard its secrets against those who would use its power for evil ends. Author Kate Mosse spins an exciting tale of intrigue…
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As Keith Ablow’s Compulsion opens, we meet Massachusetts psychiatrist Dr. Frank Clevenger, who is haunted by an encounter two years earlier with a maniacal mental patient (described in grisly detail in Ablow’s Projection). This shattering experience has left him weary and disillusioned. Wanting to keep his distance from violence and death, he has sworn off consulting on forensic cases.

Clevenger, a victim of childhood abuse, is a complex character. His list of excesses, including smoking, gambling, drugs, alcohol and rescuing troubled women, could fill a textbook. Attempting to stay sober and sane, he substitutes coffee and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle for scotch and cocaine. Never married, his choices in women are questionable, running the gamut from society damsels-in-distress to disrobed dames in seedy strip clubs. Can Clevenger keep his own demons at bay while helping others deal with theirs? Enter the wealthy, socially prominent, politically powerful and profoundly dysfunctional Bishop family of Nantucket. North Anderson, Nantucket’s chief of police, enlists Clevenger’s help when one of the Bishop’s twin babies is murdered. Against his better judgment, Clevenger is drawn into the murder investigation. Thus begins the first link in a violent chain of events as he delves deeper into the Bishop family’s disturbing secrets. He risks everything to confront the evil side of human nature. How far can you walk in darkness without losing your way forever? Frank Clevenger is about to find out. Compulsion allows us to explore Frank’s psyche, as well as those of the characters he encounters as he attempts to match wits with a psychopath. The protagonist is flawed but driven to deliver justice; the villain is suitably frightening. Ablow’s strong characterizations extend to the supporting cast, who are just as complicated and entertaining. The author, a practicing forensic psychiatrist, uses his extensive knowledge of mental illness and violence to lend authenticity to Compulsion, weaving a suspenseful mystery around riveting insights into the criminal mind. This latest addition to the Frank Clevenger series is an engrossing thriller that belongs on your summer reading list. C.

L. Ross reads, writes and reviews in Pismo Beach, California.

As Keith Ablow's Compulsion opens, we meet Massachusetts psychiatrist Dr. Frank Clevenger, who is haunted by an encounter two years earlier with a maniacal mental patient (described in grisly detail in Ablow's Projection). This shattering experience has left him weary and disillusioned. Wanting to keep…
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Joshua Spanogle’s debut novel will have readers compulsively washing their hands for months. A medical student at Stanford, Spanogle knows his subject, and the result is a chillingly realistic medical thriller with real urgency.

Isolation Ward opens as a mysterious outbreak of hemorrhagic fever strikes a run-down hospital in a decaying Baltimore neighborhood. The early symptoms of the viral infection resemble a bad case of the flu but quickly escalate to something much more horrific and an alarming percentage of those infected are dead within weeks. Dr. Nathaniel McCormick, a hard-charging medical detective from the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the Centers for Disease Control, is called in to investigate. What he uncovers is shocking: all those inflicted with the sickness are mentally handicapped residents from group homes in the area, and all have sexual links with another group home resident, an alleged rapist named Douglas Buchanan. McCormick’s investigatory style, which can best be described as antagonistic, leads him to some surprising clues, but his complete lack of couth gets him pulled from the front lines just as possible leads start surfacing. After being shipped off to California to follow up on a minor loose end, McCormick finds himself right in the middle of a jaw-dropping plot that could save millions of lives and destroy even more.

Readers will have a hard time putting down this incredibly fast-paced novel and will be disturbed by its far-reaching implications, but a minor flaw can be found in its protagonist, the ill-tempered and overly sarcastic McCormick. An unpleasant blend of loud-mouthed brat and insensitive know-it-all, the headstrong character is not always an easy one for readers to identify with. That small criticism aside, Isolation Ward is definitely a medical thriller worth reading. Paul Goat Allen is a freelance editor and writer in Camillus, New York.

Joshua Spanogle's debut novel will have readers compulsively washing their hands for months. A medical student at Stanford, Spanogle knows his subject, and the result is a chillingly realistic medical thriller with real urgency.

Isolation Ward opens as a mysterious outbreak of hemorrhagic…
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When fire damages the new Globe Theatre in London and disrupts rehearsals for Hamlet, young American director Kate Shelton finds herself enmeshed in a malignant drama of staggering proportions in Jennifer Lee Carrell's first novel, Interred with Their Bones. Just prior to the fire, Shakespearean scholar Rosalind Howard had given Kate an enigmatic gift in a small box, and she included this cryptic admonition: If you open it, you must follow where it leads. Then Rosalind is brutally murdered precisely in the manner of Hamlet's father. As the police look into Rosalind's bizarre death, Kate realizes that the box's contents a Victorian mourning brooch may be the most important bit of evidence. Following Rosalind's injunction, Kate takes it upon herself to find her friend's killer.

Kate is immediately confronted by a series of ever-increasing dangers, but she soon discovers to her surprise that she is not alone in her quest for the truth. Ben Pearl, Rosalind's strikingly good-looking nephew, turns up in the nick of time and becomes an indispensable friend and ally.

Piecing together an elaborate puzzle, Kate and Ben travel around the world to Harvard and the American southwest in pursuit of a tantalizing series of literary clues hidden in the words of Shakespeare, Cervantes, the Holy Bible and ciphered texts that will lead them to the murderer and unlock one of history's greatest literary secrets. Taking her title from Mark Antony's ironic eulogy in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Carrell, the author of the much-praised nonfiction book The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox, has proven that she knows how to write a fast-paced, highly entertaining novel. Erudite and complex, Interred with Their Bones draws readers into an allusive labyrinth embellished with the words and plots from the plays of the upstart Crow, as one contemporary dubbed the Bard. Here is a novel that will appeal to mystery-thriller fans as well as Shakespeare aficionados.

Tim Davis teaches literature at the University of West Florida.

When fire damages the new Globe Theatre in London and disrupts rehearsals for Hamlet, young American director Kate Shelton finds herself enmeshed in a malignant drama of staggering proportions in Jennifer Lee Carrell's first novel, Interred with Their Bones. Just prior to the fire, Shakespearean…

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<B>A real-life firefighter’s scorching tale</B> Earl Emerson, a 24-year veteran of the Seattle Fire Department, is best known as the author of two popular series featuring Thomas Black and Mac Fontana. In <B>Vertical Burn</B>, he introduces a new character, Seattle firefighter John Finney. Firefighting is a family tradition for the dedicated Finney, with grandfather, father and brother all in the profession.

"It was the most interesting job in the world. Getting up in the middle of the night to do who knows what. Anything could be out there waiting for him. Absolutely anything," Emerson writes. As it turns out, something very bad is waiting for Finney. One night, and one devastating warehouse fire, change his life forever.

Only Finney is convinced that the Leary Way fire on that fateful June evening is arson. Adding to the mystery, Finney’s crew arrives first on the scene when at least five truck companies should have been dispatched ahead of them. Events spiral out of control. Finney escapes the burning building; his partner does not. Heat stress and carbon monoxide poisoning cloud his recollection of the events.

Firefighting, like all professions, has its cardinal rules. Foremost, it’s bad to lose a partner in a fire, but unforgivable to be the cause of that loss. The worst thing a firefighter can do is panic, and Finney stands accused of just that. Burned, depressed and tormented by survivor’s guilt, Finney becomes obsessed with the Leary Way fire. As a result, his credibility and career suffer. However, as Finney attempts to unravel a sequence of apparent coincidences, his life gets much worse. Is it a sinister conspiracy or a case of paranoia? The tension escalates as Finney tries to save not only his career, but possibly his life as well.

Emerson gives us a ringside seat to firefighter protocol and procedures intermingled with relentless suspense. The details are realistic, including techniques to clear smoke from buildings, engines versus ladder rigs and the Knox Box (which allows firemen to enter commercial buildings without breaking down the door). <B>Vertical Burn</B> sizzles with excitement, plenty of Pacific Northwest atmosphere and a harrowing finale. It’s a convincing tale populated with the courageous individuals who fight fires and the scoundrels who set them. <I>C.

L. Ross reads, writes and reviews in Pismo Beach, California.</I>

<B>A real-life firefighter's scorching tale</B> Earl Emerson, a 24-year veteran of the Seattle Fire Department, is best known as the author of two popular series featuring Thomas Black and Mac Fontana. In <B>Vertical Burn</B>, he introduces a new character, Seattle firefighter John Finney. Firefighting is…

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If you’re a James Patterson fan it might help to be a speed reader, since this prolific suspense author turns out books at an incredible pace. Since his career began 30 years ago, Patterson has written more than 30 novels. In the last two years alone, he has published 10 new books, including his current bestseller, Mary, Mary, and his first two books for children, santaKid and Maximum Ride.

His latest is 5th Horseman, a new entry in the Women’s Murder Club series arriving in bookstores just in time for Valentine’s Day.

It’s a doozy, if I do say so myself, Patterson tells readers on his website. Four San Francisco women friends a lawyer, a reporter, a police detective and a medical examiner are on the trail of yet another killer, this time one who’s knocking off patients at the San Francisco Medical Center. The Women’s Murder Club series began with 1st to Die in 2001 and continued with 2nd Chance, 3rd Degreeand 4th of July, all bestsellers.

How does Patterson keep up this frenetic publishing pace? One answer can be found on the cover of 5th Horseman, where New York author Maxine Paetro is credited as Patterson’s co-writer. Paetro’s name first showed up on the cover of 4th of July, and she had been mentioned in the acknowledgments of several previous books. Though it’s a touchy subject, Patterson has been using collaborators for years, including Howard Roughan, Peter de Jonge and Andrew Gross, who was the credited co-writer on the two previous Murder Club books as well as the 2005 beach novel, Lifeguard.

Serving as co-writer for a brand-name author like Patterson can be a smart career move, as Gross discovered late last year when he landed what is believed to be a multimillion dollar deal to write three books for William Morrow. Whether he can achieve the incredible success and longevity of his mentor, only time will tell.

If you're a James Patterson fan it might help to be a speed reader, since this prolific suspense author turns out books at an incredible pace. Since his career began 30 years ago, Patterson has written more than 30 novels. In the last two years…
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The ninth novel in Ridley Pearson’s series featuring Seattle police detective Lou Boldt cleverly combines a high-tech crime with one of the oldest plot twists in the mystery genre: the stolen object hidden in plain sight device first used in Poe’s “The Purloined Letter.” In fact, the title of the novel, The Body of David Hayes, is itself something of an exercise in misdirection.

David Hayes once worked as a computer specialist at the bank where Lou Boldt’s wife, Liz, now directs technical operations. A digital whiz kid, Hayes managed to embezzle $17 million that no one could trace, though investigators suspected it had been stashed in an offshore account. Convicted of wire fraud and sent to prison for four years, Hayes is paroled just as the bank is about to conclude a profitable merger. When the two institutions’ records are merged, the $17 million transaction that he has apparently hidden somewhere in the bank’s computers will disappear.

Liz Boldt is not only one of the few people with access to the bank’s highest-security computers, she was also having an extramarital affair with Hayes at the time of the embezzlement. Oh, and a videotape of her having sex with Hayes has surfaced and is quickly circulating. The Boldts’ marriage is threatened by her affair, and both of the Boldts are in danger of, at best, losing their jobs and, at worst, being implicated in an ever-lengthening list of criminal offenses. Ultimately, Liz must make an anguished choice between what is best for her family and what is best for the bank.

Pearson shows his usual mastery of the intricacies of structure and the subtleties of suspenseful pacing. He is clearly fascinated by the kinds of ironies that keep character and situation connected even as events accelerate and the characters’ understanding of those events seems always a day late and a dollar short. The situation he presents is pretty close to absolute misery for the Boldts, but this gripping thriller is a terrific diversion for Pearson’s readers. Martin Kich is a professor of English at Wright State University.

The ninth novel in Ridley Pearson's series featuring Seattle police detective Lou Boldt cleverly combines a high-tech crime with one of the oldest plot twists in the mystery genre: the stolen object hidden in plain sight device first used in Poe's "The Purloined Letter." In…
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The website of The Lost Symbol offers this teaser: “9.15.09: All Will Be Revealed.” Until that date, we can only rely on the publisher to keep us informed with hints about Dan Brown’s long-anticipated follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, in the form of “cryptic tweets” and Facebook messages.

Virtually no one knows the specifics of The Lost Symbol—the team at Random House’s Doubleday imprint is relying on Brown’s already-loyal following, rather than advance praise from reviewers, to create buzz for the new thriller. Thus, the books are on lockdown until September 15. With an initial print run of 5 million copies, the book will represent the largest first printing in the history of Random House—and the company hopes it will be a publishing sensation, especially after several years of delayed release dates. Considering that The Da Vinci Code has sold 81 million copies worldwide, and its movie counterpart made $750 million, the odds are good that The Lost Symbol will land a long-term spot at the top of bestseller lists.

A little guesswork à la symbologist Robert Langdon can give us some clues as to the plot of The Lost Symbol, promised by Sonny Mehta, Editor-in-Chief of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, to be “a brilliant and compelling thriller.”

From the publisher, we know that the novel will portray 12 hours of Langdon’s life in Washington, D.C., and the plot will revolve around the Freemasons, an organization that Brown has called the “oldest fraternity in history.”

We also know that Brown’s original title for the book was “The Solomon Key.” The Key of Solomon is an important symbol in Freemason rituals. For those who want to learn more before The Lost Symbol arrives in bookstores, check out Cracking the Freemason’s Code : The Truth about Solomon’s Key and the Brotherhood by Robert D.L. Cooper, a Scottish Freemason and historian who provides an inside look at this secretive organization.

The “cryptic tweets” from the Twitter page of The Lost Symbol are nothing if not  . . .  cryptic. These short messages include questions and puzzling clues. Examples include the query “How could a precious stone burn 20 years of Isaac’s research?” and a link to an article about Robert Hanssen, a double agent who spied on the FBI for the Soviet Union and Russia. One tweet promised to reveal Langdon’s next adversary once Dan Brown’s Facebook page reaches 100,000 fans. (At press time, there were just over 60,000.)

The Facebook page for The Lost Symbol offers equally baffling tidbits, such as a link to an article about ancient pyramids with the comment that “the pyramid is a highly celebrated symbol in Freemasonry.”

And then there is the novel’s cover. The American version features the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., lit up against the background of a large red wax seal. Embedded in the wax is an unidentifiable symbol. The U.K. and Australian cover differs slightly in that the Capitol appears below a Masonic key. There have been many theories tying the Freemasons to our nation’s capital—including speculation that the streets of Washington, D.C., were planned to physically mirror important Masonic symbols. It’s also interesting to note that one of the most famous Freemasons is none other than George Washington, for whom the capital city is named.

Stephen Rubin, a former president of Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, has implied that there is special significance behind the publication date of The Lost Symbol: “Dan Brown has a very specific release date for the publication of his new book, and when the book is published, his readers will see why.”

The Key of Solomon, pyramids, important dates and an FBI spy—all in a 12-hour period of time? All in a 528-page novel? Until September 15, we can only guess whether these clues make direct references to events in the novel, or simply allude to greater themes. According to Jason Kaufman, Brown’s editor, the novel will show us “an unseen world of mysticism, secret societies and hidden locations, with a stunning twist that long predates America.”

Mehta insists that Brown’s novel is “well worth the wait.” In the meantime, we can download The Lost Symbol’s countdown widget online, re-read The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons and brush up on Freemason conspiracy theories. And get lots of sleep. For millions of booklovers, the evening of Tuesday, September 15, is shaping up to be an all-nighter.  

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All your questions answered in the review of The Lost Symbol.

The website of The Lost Symbol offers this teaser: “9.15.09: All Will Be Revealed.” Until that date, we can only rely on the publisher to keep us informed with hints about Dan Brown’s long-anticipated follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, in the form of “cryptic…

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