Indiana Jones fever pitch

 

Well, the fever’s running high – have you caught it?  The trailer’s out, and we all know this is probably the last of Indiana Jones, the intrepid, dashing anti-hero we all love.  Here’s some recent scoops: 

 

From CNN.com Entertainment, updated 8:49 a.m. EST, Mon March 3, 2008

‘Indiana Jones’ trailer a hit — everywhere

 LOS ANGELES, California (AP) – Times sure have changed in the 19 years since Harrison Ford last donned the signature fedora of thrill-seeking archaeologist Indiana Jones. The viral spread of the trailer for “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is proof of that.

Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf star in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” 

The trailer for the May 22 release has drawn highly enthusiastic responses in theaters. But it may have had its biggest impact online, on a younger audience that may not think of Ford, 65, as equal to today’s spry action heroes.

After premiering February 14 on “Good Morning America,” Lucasfilm and Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures sent the trailer to the Web, plus movie theaters and TV stations around the world. Paramount estimates the trailer was seen more than 200 million times worldwide in the first week alone.

Harry Knowles, who runs the movie fan site AintItCool.com (his official title is Head Geek), says he first saw a bootleg version of the trailer online, then the official version online, and then saw it twice in theaters. Watch the whip-cracking trailer here »

There were cheers in the theater when the familiar theme song kicked in, Knowles said, and comments on his Web site have been positive. “People generally really, really loved the trailer,” he said. “Some people think it’s a little more cartoonish-looking compared to the prior (films), with him whipping the lights and swinging on them and stuff. But at the same time, it seems that everyone is extremely excited that there’s a new ‘Indiana Jones’ film. The excitement for it is palpable. It’s much more aggressively anticipated than anything else that’s coming out right now.”

“The trailer caught on like wildfire, around the world, in all mediums,” said Gerry Rich, Paramount’s president of worldwide marketing, who’s targeting moviegoers “from 8 to 80. The response has been sensational and it shows what technology can do when you have material that is so appealing to audiences.”

Older audiences certainly remember Indy, but that’s not the prime ticket-buying demographic. Thus the aggressive online campaign, which included what Paramount says is a record 4.1 million views on the Yahoo movie site in the first week and 2.6 million on the official IndianaJones.com site, the most ever for the studio.

“It looks to be THE highly anticipated movie of the summer,” said Mark Mazrimas, marketing manager for independent theater chain Classic Cinemas. However, “this hasn’t been on the screen for so long, (the challenge) is capturing the youth.”

The brainchild of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, the franchise kicked off with “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark” in 1981, followed by “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” three summers later. “The Last Crusade” was released in 1989, boosting the worldwide box office total to $1.2 billion.

Now, with the buzz sparked, Rich — who declined to make opening weekend predictions — just wants to keep fans’ attention: “The (only) negative comment from people was that they have to wait until May to see the movie.”

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/03/film.indianajonestrailer.ap/index.html?iref=werecommend

Release Date: US (wide): May 22, 2008, UK: May 22, 2008, AU: May 22, 2008

Produced By: George Lucas

Written By: David Koepp, Jeff Nathanson

Directed By: Steven Spielberg

Genre: Action

Other Genres: Adventure

Studio: Paramount Pictures

Production Company: Lucasfilm Ltd.

Language: English

Special Effects Company: Industrial Light & Magic

Music By: John Williams

http://movies.ign.com/objects/033/033714.html 

And from Vanity Fair:

Hollywood

Keys to the Kingdom

Between them, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg have made 13 of the 100 top-grossing movies of all time. Yet they struggled for more than a decade with the upcoming fourth installment of their billion-dollar Indiana Jones franchise, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Annie Leibovitz gets exclusive access to the set, while Lucas, Spielberg, and their star, Harrison Ford, tell Jim Windolf about the long standoff over the plot, why critics and fans will be upset, and how they’ve updated Indy.

by Jim Windolf February 2008

George Lucas, Harrison Ford, and Steven Spielberg on the set of the new film in Los Angeles. “Neither of them is ashamed of making audience films,” Ford says of his partners. Photographs by Annie Leibovitz.

When we last saw him, nearly 19 years ago, everybody’s favorite archaeologist was literally riding off into the sunset after having found the Holy Grail. This seemed as though it had to be the end of the adventure series that had gotten its start with Raiders of the Lost Ark, the big summertime blockbuster of 1981. But then, on the morning of June 18, 2007, Steven Spielberg, the director of the Indiana Jones movies, and George Lucas, who came up with the idea for the franchise, found themselves facing cast and crew on an empty piece of land in Deming, New Mexico. “How time flies,” Spielberg said, raising a flute of champagne, in a moment captured on video, which ended up on YouTube. “No one’s changed, we all look the same. I just want to say: Break a leg, have a good shoot, do your best work, and here’s looking at you, kids.”

Before the day was out, the temperature had reached 97 degrees. Probably no one felt the heat more than the star, Harrison Ford, who, at age 65, was back in his distinctive costume. “It’s a very bizarre costume, when you think about it,” Ford says. “It’s this guy sporting a whip, who’s off usually for someplace really hot in his leather jacket.” He says he got right back into the role once he suited up. “There’s something about the character that I guess is a good fit for me, because the minute I put the costume on, I recognize the tone that we need, and I feel confident and clear about the character.”

After 79 first-unit filming days, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a wrap. Like the earlier movies, it is a Lucasfilm Ltd. production distributed by Paramount Pictures. Aside from the New Mexico location, the film was shot in New Haven, Connecticut; Fresno, California; and Hawaii, with significant work taking place on lots built at Downey Studios, in southeast Los Angeles.

On May 22, the movie will hit approximately 4,000 U.S. theaters. The story is set in 1957, and this time Dr. Jones goes up against cold-blooded, Cold War Russkies—led by Cate Blanchett in dominatrix mode—instead of the Nazis he squashed like bugs in previous installments. Making a return alongside Ford is Karen Allen, as Marion Ravenwood, Indy’s pugnacious true love, last seen in the first film (since retitled, rather inelegantly, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark). Rising star Shia LaBeouf joins the cast in a role that no one connected with the film will confirm is the love child of Indy and Marion.

Once the final cut is locked, it will be dubbed into some 25 languages for an ambitious international release. The masses—lately thrilling to the lethally blank Jason Bourne, the totally out-to-lunch Jack Sparrow, and that earnest wand waver Harry Potter—will be asked once more to embrace a fedora-wearing hero of the 1980s with roots in the jungle serials of the 1930s.

It’s not a bad bet. Lucas, 63, and Spielberg, 61, have made 13 of the all-time 100 highest-grossing movies, in terms of worldwide box office, either separately or as a producer-director duo. They are big-time spellbinders in a league with P. T. Barnum, Walt Disney, and the Wizard of Oz. The Indiana Jones series alone has grossed more than $1.18 billion worldwide—and that’s before you add in the comic books, young-adult novels, and figurines.

But once upon a time, in the faraway 1960s, Lucas and Spielberg were upstarts banging at the palace doors. Hollywood was run by men who were the age they are now, tough guys who weren’t going to give way without a fight. At age 18, Spielberg sneaked away from the tram route of the Universal Pictures tour and stepped onto a soundstage. He was a movie-crazed kid who had already made a full-length feature, Firelight, an 8-mm. sci-fi extravaganza starring his sisters, and he wanted in.

The next day he showed up on the lot wearing a suit, his dad’s briefcase in hand. It was a disguise good enough to get him past the guards. He settled into an empty office and “worked” at Universal all through that summer of 1965, making himself known to the cinematographers and directors, creating for himself an unofficial, on-the-fly internship. While attending California State University, Long Beach, Spielberg continued to visit the lot. On weekends he shot a 23-minute 35-mm. movie about two young hitchhikers, called Amblin’. He won a real job on the strength of it, as a director in Universal’s television wing. So there he was, a boy wonder among grizzled veterans, turning out episodes of Night Gallery, Columbo, and Marcus Welby, M.D., honing the craft he would put to use in a career spanning everything from The Sugarland Express (1974) to Munich (2005).

Lucas was more of an accidental filmmaker. As a skinny diabetic kid growing up in the dusty Northern California town of Modesto, he wanted to be a racecar driver—in those days driving fast and fixing cars were his chief talents—but his dream died soon before his high-school graduation, when he flipped over in his own Fiat Bianchina. The wreck almost killed him. After two years of community college, he applied to the University of Southern California’s film school. He moved downstate against the wishes of his strict father (who considered the film industry vile), and soon made a name for himself with a series of prizewinning experimental shorts. His U.S.C. films earned him a paid Warner Bros. internship that led him to the set of Finian’s Rainbow, a musical being shot by just about the only young director back then, 28-year-old Francis Ford Coppola, who pushed Lucas to learn how to write scripts and create accessible movies. Lucas went on to do just that on a grand scale, and he pulled it off largely outside the system. With his considerable winnings he built Lucasfilm, his very own, leaner version of Hollywood, now based in San Francisco’s Presidio and on a large property in rural Marin County.

In 1967, Spielberg had seen a Lucas short, Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, at a student film festival held at U.C.L.A.’s Royce Hall. “I met George backstage,” Spielberg recalls. “I was blown away by his short film, and Francis Coppola introduced us.” They met again in the early 1970s, when Lucas was in L.A. to cast his second feature, American Graffiti. A gang of young cinéastes was gathering at a Benedict Canyon hovel that had been Lucas’s home in his U.S.C. days, and where he was staying again while in town. Among the group was Spielberg, who was working on his script for The Sugarland Express. “I’d come in at night after casting all day,” Lucas says, “and that’s when we became friends.” As the decade rolled along, blockbusters by Spielberg (Jaws) and Lucas (Star Wars—now called Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope) changed the industry.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/02/indianajones200802

And from First Showing.net, back in January:

The Best Indiana Jones 4 Photos and Interviews Yet!

January 2, 2008
Source: Vanity Fair
by Alex Billington

These are undoubtedly the best Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull pictures you’ll see – thanks to world-renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz. Vanity Fair has published an extensive article on the new film and nabbed Leibovitz’s exclusive photos from the set, including our first look at Cate Blanchett as Agent Spalko. They all look absolutely gorgeous and are more than worth checking out simply for the visual quality alone. Vanity Fair also has one of the best articles I’ve ever read about a movie and the story behind it, including great quotes from Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg. We’ve included a few of the better quotes for your reading pleasure, though I suggest you read the entire thing.

The following excerpts are courtesy of Vanity Fair’s article Keys to the Kingdom.

“I’m in my second cut, which means I’ve put the movie together and I’ve seen it,” Spielberg says. “I usually do about five cuts as a director. The best news is that, when I saw the movie myself the first time, there was nothing I wanted to go back and shoot, nothing I wanted to reshoot, and nothing I wanted to add.”

Rather than update the franchise to match current styles, Lucas and Spielberg decided to stay true to the prior films’ look, tone, and pace. During pre-production, Spielberg watched the first three Indiana Jones movies at an Amblin screening room with Janus Kaminski, who has shot the director’s last 10 films. He replaces Douglas Slocombe, who shot the first three Indy movies (and is now retired at age 94), as the man mainly responsible for the film’s look. “I needed to show them to Janusz,” Spielberg says, “because I didn’t want Janusz to modernize and bring us into the 21st century. I still wanted the film to have a lighting style not dissimilar to the work Doug Slocombe had achieved, which meant that both Janusz and I had to swallow our pride. Janusz had to approximate another cinematographer’s look, and I had to approximate this younger director’s look that I thought I had moved away from after almost two decades.”

The Bourne movies, the last two of which were directed by United 93 virtuoso Paul Greengrass, have made an impression on Lucas also. The series seems to have become the new action-movie gold standard, or at least a widely admired point of reference in filmmaking circles. Lucas says he appreciates the Bourne movies for their relative believability. “The thing about Bourne,” Lucas says, “I would put that on the credible side, because he’s trained in martial arts and all that kind of stuff, and we know that people in martial arts, even little old ladies, can break somebody’s leg. So you kind of say, O.K., that’s possible. But when you get to the next level, whether it’s Tomb Raider or the Die Hard series, where you’ve got one guy with one pistol going up against 50 guys with machine guns, or he jumps in a jet and starts chasing a car down a freeway, you say, I’m not sure I can really buy this. Mission: Impossible’s like that. They do things where you could not survive in the real world. In Indiana Jones, we stay just this side of it.”

The script, Spielberg says, can provide the blockbuster pace. “Part of the speed is the story,” he says. “If you build a fast engine, you don’t need fast cutting, because the story’s being told fluidly, and the pages are just turning very quickly. You first of all need a script that’s written in the express lane, and if it’s not, there’s nothing you can do in the editing room to make it move faster. You need room for character, you need room for relationships, for personal conflict, you need room for comedy, but that all has to happen on a moving sidewalk.”

“What it is that made it perfect was the fact that the MacGuffin I wanted to use and the idea that Harrison would be 20 years older would fit,” Lucas says. “So that put it in the mid-50s, and the MacGuffin I was looking at was perfect for the mid-50s. I looked around and I said, ‘Well, maybe we shouldn’t do a 30s serial, because now we’re in the 50s. What is the same kind of cheesy-entertainment action movie, what was the secret B movie, of the 50s?’ So instead of doing a 30s Republic serial, we’re doing a B science-fiction movie from the 50s. The ones I’m talking about are, like, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Blob, The Thing. So by putting it in that context, it gave me a way of approaching the whole thing.”

“The fans are all upset,” Lucas says. “They’re always going to be upset. ‘Why did he do it like this? And why didn’t he do it like this?” They write their own movie, and then, if you don’t do their movie, they get upset about it. So you just have to stand by for the bricks and the custard pies, because they’re going to come flying your way.”

I really encourage you to go read the full Vanity Fair article – it’s definitely worth it. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull arrives in theaters this summer on May 22nd!

http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/01/02/the-best-indiana-jones-4-photos-and-interviews-yet/

There were pictures released in February of the “skull”, but they were removed at the request of Paramount – they had been leaked, and were in violation of the strict “code of silence’ that surrounds this film, like most of Spielberg’s projects.

And for your enjoyment, here is the final poster:

From FirstShowing.net:

Final Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Poster!

March 9, 2008
Source: USA Today
by Alex Billington

“[The] new Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Poster poster, as drawn by Drew Struzan. Like its predecessors …, the poster features a great mural including all of the cast and scenes from the film.

In addition, the article [from USA today] includes a little snippet about the plot consideration and the alien crystal skull that we posted previously. Although we were forced to remove that photo of the skull, you can now see it prominently “glowing” in the middle of the poster.

‘The new poster for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the CrystalSkull confirms something alien is afoot.

The first poster for the film (due May 22) featured part of the title relic, but there was always something odd about the eye socket. In the follow-up, also by sci-fi/fantasy movie artist Drew Struzan, it’s clear the skull is not at all human. Add to that the recent trailer, with its shot of a crate labeled “Roswell, New Mexico 1947,” and you don’t need to be a professor of archaeology to put the pieces together.

Other clues: Looks as if our hero will face his least-favorite animal and the locals at some Maya ruins. Karen Allen (who also was in 1981’s original) seems to be enjoying herself, though.’”

http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/03/09/final-indiana-jones-and-the-kingdom-of-the-crystal-skull-poster/

So we will have to wait, and wait, and wait….

WordPress.com Tags: movies, Indiana Jones, adventure

New Thriller Adventure books to read/watch for…Part II

Here’s Part II of my action/adventure/thriller list of new and forthcoming books. Some I have, others I don’t. None have been read yet, hence no personal comments; I don’t have THAT big a book budget! (though I WISH!). And in no particular order the winners are:

Raising Atlantis by Thomas Greanias

“It’s not hard to see why this techno-thriller has already been such a success: a gripping plot about the discovery of an island believed to be Atlantis–not in the Aegean but buried under the ice of the South Pole; some colorful characters, including a father-and-son team of archeologists (Are Harrison Ford and Sean Connery ready to do the film?); and some clean, no-nonsense writing that adds to the reading speed and suspense.” Chicago Tribune

Ancient Rising: Rise of the Ancients Book I by JC De La Torre

“What if you discovered that the Greek Gods of myth were real, imprisoned for thousands of years on the lost continent of Atlantis and only you could release them from their underwater prison?
What if the journey would take you to the Greek Isles, Egypt, the rain forests of Mexico, and eventually Atlantis itself?
What if the long the way you made unbelievable scientific discoveries, battled pirates and zombies, and finally discovered the amazingly powerful, god-like beings did exist and the Earth’s very existence depended on your freeing them?
What if you found out that if you free them, you may be dooming the entire human race?

This is the plight of Dan Ryan, a recent widower who while in the depths of great despair of the loss of his wife and child, is set on this very adventure by a peculiar character who claims to be the Greek God Hermes. Follow Dan and his friends as the adventure of a lifetime begins the first of this new fantasy trilogy.” From the author’s website

“The novel reads like the Da Vinci Code but with a fantasy twist!” IBList.com, Adrian Lambert, June 2006

“The author done the homework and come up with a novel full of exotic places, musty-dusty finds and the Gods.” Fantasy Novel Review, 2006

Sign of the Cross by Chris Kuzneski

“Kuzneski elbows his way into the overcrowded field of the papal thriller with his sophomore effort (after 2002’s racially charged The Plantation), combining the requisite plot twists and Da Vinci-esque secret histories with a Passion of the Christ-like attention to gore. And there’s plenty of opportunity for gore: Kuzneski kicks off the action with a nasty crucifixion in modern-day Denmark. It turns out the victim is a Vatican priest, and his murder is just the first. Meanwhile, maverick archeologist Dr. Charles Boyd and his assistant Maria Pelati discover a 2000-year-old scroll underneath the Italian town of Orvieto that contains “a secret that would change… the history of the world—forever.” Instantly, the two become the most wanted people in Europe, pursued by the Vatican, a large measure of Western European law enforcement and two freelance CIA agents. As the chase begins, more crucified priests are turning up across the globe, and the head of Interpol’s new homicide division, Nick Dial, finds himself edging closer to the heart of a centuries-old coverup. Cat and mouse games accelerate and alliances shuffle as the overstuffed plot brings its numerous players together, but excessive detail and exposition-heavy dialogue slow the action. Despite its flaws, Kuzneski knows what fans of the genre want: compelling and well-researched history, high-tech 21st-century sleuthing and a lot of action.” Publishers Weekly

Sword of God by Chris Kuzneski

“Retired soldiers Jonathon Payne and D.J. Jones return to action (after last year’s Sign of the Cross), investigating a secret bunker off the coast of Korea where a gruesome scene and a missing squad from their former unit, an elite counterinsurgency team, indicate that secret interrogation proceedings have gone terribly wrong. Piecing together the facts of the case lead Payne and Jones to Mecca, where a plot to blow up the Grand Mosque suggests a global conspiracy to align forces against the United States. Soon Payne and Jones have to risk their lives to infiltrate Mecca (where non-Muslims can be summarily executed) to save the city and, ultimately, the world. Kuzneski’s novel is taut and largely fast-paced; though occasionally bogged down in historical exposition, it’s a fair trade that gives the book a rich sense of authenticity and plausibility. Though characters are short on depth, Kuzneski knows how to maintain a nuanced moral landscape while wresting maximum thrills from contemporary Western fear of terrorism. This globe-crossing action thriller, like its predecessor, evokes the spirit of Dan Brown, with welcome doses of Lee Child’s ex-military tough-guy grit.” Publishers Weekly

Atlantis by David Gibbins

“From the fall of the Roman Empire to the last days of Nazi power, marine archaeologist Jack Howard and his team of adventurers are hot on the trail of history’s most elusive and desired treasure: the lost golden menorah of Jerusalem. And what they discover could change the world forever….

Deep beneath the windswept waters near Istanbul, Jack and his crack team of experts have uncovered a surprising clue to the location of the fabled treasure plundered during the Crusades. Meanwhile, in a dusty cathedral library, someone unearths a long-forgotten medieval map. Together the two discoveries will solve an ancient mystery—and spark a race to stop a present-day conspiracy of staggering proportions.

From diving into the core of an arctic iceberg to the last stand of a Viking warship to an extraordinary revelation deep in the jungles of Central America, Jack is headed straight into a globe-spanning clash of civilizations, into an astounding underground labyrinth steeped in blood and horrors—and to a confrontation with a killer on a shattering crusade of his own.” Amazon

Crusader Gold by David Gibbins

“In Gibbins’s sequel to Atlantis, marine archeologist Jack Howard searches for an ancient gold menorah seized by Vespasian’s army during the sack of Jerusalem. While Jack and his team of scientists and historians follow clues from Istanbul and England to the Arctic, Canada and Mexico, a group of neo-Nazis (who have co-opted an organization as old as the Crusades and dedicated to the relic’s safety) conspire to find and use the menorah to destabilize the world’s religions. Stilted exposition, in which Jack details large chunks of history for colleagues who should already know it, mars an otherwise interesting backstory, and cardboard characters rouse little sympathy. Elsewhere, an overwhelming surfeit of detail serves at best to drag down the suspense, at worst to cause terminal confusion. Those with an already-strong sense of Roman, barbarian, Viking and English history, as well as those with a sincere desire to learn, will appreciate Gibbins’s alternate history of King Harald Hardrada’s defeat, if not necessarily the teacherly style or clunky adventure story in which it’s couched.” Publishers Weekly

The Lost Tomb by David Gibbins

Available 12/30/08

“I’ve just finished my third novel, THE LOST TOMB, which focuses on the evidence for early Christianity. That’s been very exciting for me to research and write, and is due to be published early next year. My fourth novel hinges on a fascination I’ve always had for Alexander the Great, for how far the Greeks and Romans reached east to India and beyond. I can’t give away much yet, but there are some wonderful locations, and the story ranges through time and geography in much the same way as CRUSADER GOLD.” Interview with Bookreporter.com

The Didymus Contingency: A Time Travel Thriller by Jeremy Robinson

“IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, AND WITNESS ANY EVENT, WHERE WOULD YOU GO? When Dr. Tom Greenbaum faces that question after successfully discovering the secret to time travel, he knows the time, place and event he will witness: the death and failed resurrection of Jesus Christ. Dr. David Goodman, Tom’s colleague and closest friend follows Tom into the past, attempting to avert a time-space catastrophe, but forces beyond their control toss them into a dangerous end game where they are tempted by evil characters, betrayed by friends, pursued by an assassin from the future and haunted by a demon that cannot be killed.” Amazon

“[a] unique and bold thriller. It is a fast-paced page-turner like no other. Not to be missed!” James Rollins

Time Camera by Terence Lee

“Texan Zak Endecott, a mathematical whiz who’s into computers, discovers a way to penetrate the time curtain using a laser beamed into the ether from a secretly modified video camera. He cannot look forward, only back into history, and there is no audio. Initially, he catches Jack the Ripper on video, then with his girlfriend Lucy Bart records the Mutiny on the Bounty, all as part of a money-making venture.

But then things change. Zak and Lucy record Leon Trotsky present at the murder of Rasputin, “the mad monk,” but this is a historical anachronism. Next, they find and record the mysterious founder of the Bavarian Illuminati, Adam Weishaupt, conferring at the Palace of Versailles with Benjamin Franklin. What they don’t know is that they’ve just stumbled onto the shadowy AA. Founded by Weishaupt, this is the secret organization that calls the shots in the Western World from an address in Washington, D.C. Also aiming at ruling the world is the Brotherhood, an equally shadowy organization founded in Egypt and dedicated to the destruction of the West.Accompanied by a man who calls himself Eric Simmonds, a British historian and assassin employed by AA, Zak and Lucy are pressed into service by their country to use the camera to expose the Brotherhood and destroy its leadership. The Vatican is planning something big in August-the disclosure of a hitherto missing document concerning the third secret revealed at Fatima in 1917. But the Brotherhood is planning something even bigger. While Zak, Lucy, and Eric are trying to stop the Brotherhood, AA makes a decision they know nothing about. AA wants them to video the greatest event in history, which will be flashed around the world at the same time the Pope makes his announcement. Time is running out, and they are still unable to discover the Brotherhood’s plan.” www.time-camera.com

The Thieves of Faith by Richard Doetsch

“Beneath the Kremlin lies a shocking ancient truth.
And it’s about to be stolen.…Since the times of Ivan the Terrible, generations of Russian leaders have turned the Kremlin into a fortress within a fortress, stocking its labyrinthine underground with secret vaults, elegant chambers, and priceless treasures. Now a master thief has the ultimate motivation to stage an assault on the Kremlin’s inner sanctum. Two lives depend on it. Thousands of years of religious faith hinge on it. And a man’s conscience, skill, and passion will not let him fail.For Michael St. Pierre, history’s most daring heist is only one piece of an intricate puzzle reaching from an ancient monastery in Scotland to a hideaway in Corsica—where a madman has built an empire of terror. Haunted by his own family secrets, and surrounded by the precious few people he can trust, Michael will take on a mission that will make him the most hunted man in the world. But when an astounding truth, buried deep beneath the Kremlin, erupts with shattering force, he may unleash a relic too dangerous to possess.… “ Amazon Secret Histories: A Repairman Jack Novel by F. Paul Wilson

Y/A! Available 2/15/08 (10 in the original series – this is about the younger Jack)

“

F. Paul Wilson has contracted to write a trilogy of young adult novels based on Jack. The first, Secret Histories, starts with Jack at fourteen years old. Gauntlet will be publishing a signed limited edition of all three, the first seeing release around February (well before the trade edition is released)

Read for the first time Jack’s formative years. You’ll meet his mother and father, big sister Kate and his bully of a brother Tom. While aimed for young adults, F. Paul Wilson doesn’t write down and the book is as enjoyable for adults as it is for teens. And, as you can see from the above description there’s plenty of foreshadowing of events that were to overtake Jack as an adult (i.e. An old woman with a dog … making herself known to Jack when he’s just fourteen!)” From the author’s website

Prometheus’s Child: Harold Coyle’s Strategic Solution’s, Inc. by Harold Coyle

“The gripping second Strategic Solutions Inc. military thriller from Coyle and Tillman (after Pandora’s Legion) details the workings of a PMC, or private military contractor. The U.S. government, which wants plausible deniability if things go wrong, hires SSI to send a team to a corrupt, unstable Chad to train its army in counterinsurgency techniques. The authors dig into the contract negotiations, move through the operation’s organization and planning stages, and open out into training and the operation itself. Things begin to fall apart when stopping a secret shipment of yellow cake uranium destined for Iran takes precedence over the SSI team’s original mission. An overabundance of characters leaves little time for development, but the operational minutiae are absorbing (even the contract negotiations), and the action, which ranges from the desert to the high seas, explosive. The authors keep reader interest high from the intriguing beginning to the final promethean twist.” Publishers Weekly

Dourado by David Wood

“A sunken treasure. An ancient Biblical artifact. A mystery as old as humankind. On January 25, 1829, the Portuguese brig Dourado sank off the coast of Indonesia, losing its cargo of priceless treasures from the Holy Land. One of these lost relics holds the key to an ancient mystery. But someone does not want this treasure to come to light. When her father is mysteriously murdered while searching for the Dourado, Kaylin Maxwell hires treasure hunter and former Navy Seal Dane Maddock and his partner Uriah “Bones” Bonebrake, to locate the Dourado, and recover a lost Biblical artifact, the truth behind which could shake the foundations of the church, and call into question the fundamentally held truths of human existence. Join Dane and Bones on a perilous adventure that carries them from the depths of the Pacific to ancient cities of stone as they unravel the mystery of the Dourado.” Amazon

Shadow Command by Dale Brown

Available 5/13/08 – No further information

Vigil by Robert Masello

“In the caves beneath an Italian lake, the fossil of a creature older than the earth has been disinterred.

In the Judaean desert, a legendary parchment has been discovered.

One reveals the secrets of Heaven.
One foretells an impending Hell.

And deciphering their message has been left to paleontologist Carter Cox–a man of science whose faith in the empirical is about to be shaken by forces of evil beyond imagining.” Amazon

Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva

Available 7/22/08 – no other information

The Secret Servant (Gabriel Allon) by Daniel Silva

“Starred Review. Bestseller Silva’s superlative seventh novel to feature Gabriel Allon, the legendary but wayward son of Israeli Intelligence, puts Silva squarely atop the spy thriller heap. When Solomon Rosner, a professor in Amsterdam who’s also a secret Israeli asset, is assassinated for his strident reports and articles detailing the dangers of militant Islam within the Netherlands, Gabriel gets the job to clean out the professor’s files. In Amsterdam, the Israeli agent and his old partner, Eli Lavon, unearth a plot that leads to the kidnapping by Islamic extremists of the daughter of the U.S. ambassador in London. While most intelligence agencies consider Gabriel persona non grata because of his unorthodox methods and the trail of bodies he leaves in his wake, he once again proves invaluable as he and his stalwart team hunt down some of Israel’s—and the world’s—most violent enemies. While you don’t have to have read the earlier books in the series (The Messenger, etc.), knowing the history of the returning characters adds depth and color to the overall story.” Publishers Weekly

Deep Storm: A Novel by Lincoln Child

“Best known as the coauthor (with Douglas Preston) of such bestselling thrillers as Dance of Death, Child delivers a well-crafted and literate science fiction thriller, his third solo effort (after 2004’s Death Match). Peter Crane, a former naval doctor, faces the challenge of his career when he investigates a mysterious illness that has broken out on a North Atlantic oil rig. Sworn to secrecy, Crane is transported from the rig to an amazing undersea habitat run by the military that’s apparently pursuing evidence that Atlantis exists. Psychotic episodes among the scientific staff as well as the activities of a saboteur that threatens the project’s safety keep Crane busy, even as some of the staff members confront him with concerns that exploring the Earth’s core could be fatal to all life on earth. Crisp writing energizes a familiar plot, which builds to an unsettling climax with echoes of Child and Preston’s The Ice Limit.” Publishers Weekly

Havoc by Jack Du Brul

“Thriller fans who don’t demand much realism in their reads should enjoy the first hardcover entry in bestseller Du Brul’s adventure series featuring geologist and spy Philip Mercer (Vulcan Forge, etc.). The novel opens with an intriguing premise—that the Hindenburg zeppelin blew up in 1937 as the result of sabotage aimed at keeping a crackpot academic’s discoveries secret. In the present-day Central African Republic, Mercer hooks up with the de rigueur attractive but brainy female, Cali Stowe, who’s a U.S. intelligence agent posing as a medical researcher. As the pair dodge death from violent insurgent armies in predictable action sequences, they exchange light banter—and learn that the African nation is the source of a radioactive element coveted by terrorists that may have been used by Alexander the Great to defeat his foes. Du Brul is the coauthor with Clive Cussler of the Oregon Files novels, Dark Watch and Skeleton Coast.” Publishers Weekly

The Quest by Wilbur Smith

“The latest book by best-selling adventure novelist Smith is the fourth volume in his series of historical novels set in pharaonic Egypt, tracing the adventures of eunuch and mystic Taita. Its immediate predecessor was Warlock (2001). The quest of the title is just as much a spiritual one as an actual one as Taita, out of a deep devotion to his country and his pharaoh, seeks the identity and the quashing of the “menacing force” that is threatening the very existence of the kingdom; the “land of Egypt quailed, and the population gave in to despair.” The Nile has refused to rise and bring fresh, fertile soil to the river valley; the shrunken river runs with blood; and huge, poisonous toads arise from the bloody water and overrun the land. Taita must go deep upriver, far into Africa’s interior, to discover the reason. Ancient mysticism and mythology swirl through the narrative as swiftly as the Nile waters when in full flood. Smith has always been long on action, and his new novel won’t disappoint his fans in that regard; he’s always been graphic in depicting violence and death, and his new novel certainly fits the mold.” Booklist

Earthcore by Scott Sigler

“Deep below a desolate Utah mountain lies the largest platinum deposit ever discovered. A billion-dollar find, it waits for any company that can drill a world’s record, three-mile-deep mine shaft. EarthCore is the company with the technology, the resources and the guts to go after the mother lode. Young executive Connell Kirkland is the company’s driving force, pushing himself and those around him to uncover the massive treasure. But at three miles below the surface, where the rocks are so hot they burn bare skin, something has been waiting for centuries. Waiting …and guarding. Kirkland and EarthCore are about to find out first-hand why this treasure has never been unearthed.” Amazon

The Rasputin Relic by William M. Valtos

“Rasputin Lives! In present-day Pennysylvania, a severed hand turns up in a safe-deposit box that has not been opened in more than 50 years. The note on the wrapping, written in old Church Slavonic, says it is the right hand of Rasputin, the legendary monk who has been dead since 1916. Yet the hand is perfectly preserved and blood still drips from the wound! Alternately called a man of God, a charlatan, and a drunken womanizer, thius lasting legend is again wreaking havac.The faithful believe that incorruptible remains–relics–have the power to cure. Yet those who come into contact with hand begin to die; a bizarre series of deaths that puts the acting chief of police of a small town in a race against time. As Victor Rhostok investigates, he is pulled into a web of Russian mysticism and superstition.In his search, Rhostok encounters Nicole Danilovitch, a young widow. As he looks for answers in the no-man’s land where science confronts religion, she seeks redemption for her sins at the hands of a priest who may be a false prophet. And in her past hides the key to the mystery.” inside book flap “The Rasputin Relic” is another fast-paced mystery-thriller from the author of “The Authenticator” and La Magdalena”.

Infected by Scott Sigler

Available 4/1/08

“Part Stephen King, part Chuck Palahniuk, Infected blends science fiction and horror into a pulpy masterpiece of action, terror, and suspense. Three recommendations: don’t read it at night, or just after you’ve eaten a full meal, or if you’re weak of heart. You’ve been warned!” by James Rollins

“Sigler is masterful at grabbing the reader by the throat and refusing to let go. Just when I thought I knew what abyss he was leading me across, he knocked the bridge out from under… I think I screamed the whole way down… INFECTED is a marvel of gonzo, in-your-face, up-to-the-minute terror.” Lincoln Child

Ancestor by Scott Sigler “Ancestor is the world’s most-popular “podcast novel.” A serialized audiobook delivered in 20 weekly episodes, Ancestor’s first run played to an audience of more than 30,000 die-hard fans in 31 countries. All told, fans have downloaded more than 700,000 episodes of Ancestor. En route to a rousing final episode, Ancestor was the #1 literary podcast on iTunes and every other podcast index, including Morpheus, FeedBurner, Podiobooks.com and Podcast Alley. The book’s popularity caught the attention of the broadcast world, and was the first audiobook broadcast on Sirius Satellite to the company’s 4.3 million subscribers. ANCESTOR On a remote island in Lake Superior, scientists struggle to solve the problem of xenotransplantation — using animal tissue to replace failing human organs. Funded by the biotech firm Genada, Dr. Claus Rhumkorrf seeks to recreate the ancestor of all mammals. By getting back to the root of our creation, Rhumkorrf hopes to create an animal with human internal organs. Rhumkorrf discovers the ancestor, but it is not the small, harmless creature he envisions. His genius gives birth to a fast-growing evil that nature eradicated 250 million years ago — an evil now on the loose, and very, very hungry.” Amazon

Golem by Greg Vilk

“In 1942 a U.S. Rangers commando is sent to capture a remote Nazi base in Greenland. Upon arrival, the Rangers discover that the German crew has been massacred and that the lone, fear-stricken survivor hallucinates about ghosts in the snow. The Rangers soon find out that they’re not alone in the base and that they’re confronted with a faceless, deadly entity which can breathe life into non-living matter.” Amazon

“Biblical arcana, ancient secrets, and highflying adventure” “Strap yourself in for the ride!” James Rollins

The Masada Scroll by Paul Block

“A Catholic priest, an American scholar, and a nice Jewish girl mull over the significance of an ancient document unearthed at the site of Israel’s to-the-last-man stand against the Romans. The scroll is the long-theorized “Q” document–an eyewitness, written account of the life of Jesus. The message of the scroll is “trevia dei,” or that there are three paths to God–Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Thus Jesus could become the modern-day prophet of world peace, but naturally, there’s an extremist Catholic group that wants to suppress the truth. Block and Vaughan offer up cliche after cliche, but they also include a great deal of arcane knowledge, perhaps even enough to satisfy Da Vinci Code fans.” BooklistThe Citadel by Robert Doherty

“At the start of the Cold War, the greatest threat to America wasn’t the Russians and the looming Communist threat. Rather, it was an elite organization bent on world domination, a group so powerful only nuclear weapons could safeguard against them. The CIA knew what these men were capable of, and in a last ditch attempt to protect America against them, they built two high–security arsenals deep within the earth––one declassified in the Nevada desert, and one heavily under wraps in Antarctica. For over 50 years, no one spoke of The Citadel, the fortress deep under the ice in Antarctica that held the most powerful weapon known to man––until the Organization returned, hellbent on destruction.Captain Jim Vaughn is a government agent known for performing missions no one else wants. So when an old colleague approaches him with an assignment, he can’t refuse––even if the mission has been set in motion by a dead man’s letter, found in Antarctica and dated 1949. The Citadel has been cracked, and the only man who can safeguard it is Vaughn. Nothing short of the fate of mankind rests on his shoulders.” Amazon Psychic Warrior: Project Aura by Robert Doherty

“Part science fiction and part military thriller, this complex novel will appeal to readers who prefer their suspense laced with technical jargon and brimming with blatant government wrongdoing. Doherty’s sequel to last year’s Psychic Warrior reintroduces the virtual soldier a warrior who can leave his or her body behind, go anywhere and do anything by harnessing the power of the mind and is loaded with faceless characters known only by their last names (e.g., General Eichen, Lieutenant Jackson). Sergeant Major Dalton, an ex-Green Beret and the hero of Doherty’s first installment, is called upon to do battle against a psychic cabal known as the Priory, a mysterious group that strikes enemies without warning and strives for world domination. With the exception of Dalton, Doherty’s underdeveloped characters fail to evoke the reader’s sympathy, rendering the outcome of the psychic battles waged on various continents between U.S. freedom fighters and members of the Priory virtually irrelevant. Nevertheless, Doherty’s portrayal of the U.S. government as a highly classified operation is as intriguing as it is disturbing, and detail-oriented readers will thrill to Doherty’s cold, calculating and emotion-free prose. Those unused to this hard-edged style, however, may find his writing uncommonly dry and stiff.” Publishers Weekly

Unholy Grail by D. L. Wilson

“A series of French articles-supposedly based on the writings of Jesus’s brother James-has revealed that the descendants of Christ exist to this very day.

Now, one man has taken the name of the archangel Gabriel and has embarked on a quest to protect Christianity’s innocence by eliminating all who could expose the secrets of the gospel-and its connection to the Holy Grail. ” Amazon

“A fast-paced and well-crafted religious thriller.” Andrew Gross

“A runaway train of a novel.” Molly Cochran

“Absolutely thrilling…a compulsive read loaded with suspense.” Lynn Hightower

Chasing Eden by S.L. Linnea

“Chaplain (Maj.) Jaime Richards makes a promising debut as a savvy-but-nurturing minister to American troops during the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Though she’s an unconventional thriller protagonist, Richards leaves no doubt she’s up to the task when, right out of the chute, she’s the target of a kidnapping attempt—but not before she’s reunited with a fatally injured college chum, Adara Dunbar. In her dying moments, Adara gives Jaime a silver pendant and a cryptic message, pleading with the chaplain to promise she’ll complete Adara’s mission. With Adara dead, though, her mission is a mystery, one that unfolds, labyrinthlike, over the course of the novel. Though hungry and sleep deprived, Jaime deciphers Adara’s message, which leads her to the ancient city of Ur and a man who identifies himself as Adara’s brother. His mission is to locate the biblical Garden of Eden—before others find it first—and Jaime is quickly drawn into the scramble. Following a popular formula, in which forces of good and evil race to locate religious artifacts, this one benefits from its wartime setting, which proves both prescient and dynamic. Unfortunately, Linnea fails to carry through the rich promise of her early chapters, delivering implausible plot devices and a disappointing ending.” Publishers Weekly

The Second Virgin Birth by Tommy Taylor

“Do we have the technology enabling Christ to be born again of a second virgin mother? A six year old little girl in Alabama knows we do. The Pope is afraid we do. The world asks “should we if we can?” The book follows the life of a little girl in Alabama who goes completely insane at the age of six and is confined to a state mental hospital. In a strange twist of fate, she is chosen, “by God,” to become the mother of his son, the next Madonna in the second coming of Christ. Explore her life as there are those who adore and worship her and there are those who loathe her and will do anything to end her life before her son is born. This story is a true “can’t put it down” book. ” Amazon

Violent Sands – A Novel by Sean Young “THE SCROLL WILL DESTROY… For generations, the copper scroll has remained buried, concealing the treasure it protects and the prophecy it contains. Now that secret is about to be unleashed. In the right hands, the scroll could bring about ancient Israel’s freedom from Roman occupation, but used improperly, it could destroy her. EVERYTHING THE MAN KNOWS… After watching Roman soldiers murder his father and pillage his homeland, Barabbas, a warrior zealot and sworn protector of the scroll, has become a broken man, physically and emotionally. His quest for vengeance and Roman blood, his love for a peace loving woman, and his commitment to the mysterious scroll pull him in vastly different directions. AND HE WILL BE KILLED… Death and betrayal loom around every corner as Barabbas searches for a truth that he has yet to fully understand-the force that drives him forward and ultimately requests the ultimate sacrifice to be made by a man. OR REMADE.” Amazon

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull by James Rollins

Available 5/20/08 – based on the upcoming movie

Virgin by F. Paul Wilson

“F. Paul Wilson has written a number of apocalyptic thrillers over the years, but he has not really done much with the Christian end-of-the-world ideas that come from Revelations and have been done, for better or worse (often worse) in such stories as the Left Behind books. Wilson’s Virgin is his venture into this genre, combining Christian mythology and his own writing style to make a book that can be entertaining to readers of many different religious backgrounds.The story opens during the Gulf War in 1991. An errant Scud missile exposes a cave that has some unusual artifacts: some scrolls that are found by a pair of young Arab shepherds who see a gold mine in the ancient documents. Years later, a forged version of these writings makes it way to Father Dan Fitzpatrick, a homeless advocate in New York City. For all his good deeds, Fitzpatrick does have one sin: he is secretly lovers with the nun Carrie Ferris. While Fitzpatrick treats the translated scroll as merely entertaining, Ferris takes it seriously and drags her lover to Israel in search of the body of the Virgin Mary herself. They are successful, setting up a series of events that are beyond either of their control.If you are expecting a truly Christian novel, you will be disappointed. The ideas expressed herein, while reasonably respectful of Christianity, are more plot devices than reverent messages. In fact, by the end of the book, it is clear that this is not a promotion of any faith. Instead, this is a supernatural thriller, with Wilson’s usual flair for creating page-turning fare. If you are a Wilson fan, you may not find this his best work, but it is still a fun read.” mrliteral (customer review)

The Terror by Dan Simmons“Starred Review. Hugo-winner Simmons (Olympos) brings the horrific trials and tribulations of arctic exploration vividly to life in this beautifully written historical, which injects a note of supernatural horror into the 1840s Franklin expedition and its doomed search for the Northwest Passage. Sir John Franklin, the leader of the expedition and captain of the Erebus, is an aging fool. Francis Crozier, his second in command and captain of the Terror, is a competent sailor, but embittered after years of seeing lesser men with better connections given preferment over him. With their two ships quickly trapped in pack ice, their voyage is a disaster from start to finish. Some men perish from disease, others from the cold, still others from botulism traced to tinned food purchased from the lowest bidder. Madness, mutiny and cannibalism follow. And then there’s the monstrous creature from the ice, the thing like a polar bear but many times larger, possessed of a dark and vicious intelligence. This complex tale should find many devoted readers and add significantly to Simmons’s already considerable reputation.” Publishers Weekly

The Fifth Vial by Michael Palmer

“Bestseller Palmer (The Society) tackles the illegal transplant organ trade in his entertaining 12th medical suspense novel. What do three very different people—Harvard medical student Natalie Reyes, Chicago PI Ben Callahan and scientific genius Joe Anson—have in common? Natalie, in Brazil for a conference, is attacked, hospitalized and loses a lung; Ben gets hired to discover how a mutilated anonymous body died; Joe, the inventor of an untested medical breakthrough, is forced into an operation for his life-threatening pulmonary fibrosis. All three seek answers connected to the Whitestone Foundation, a conglomerate that’s a front for the Guardians, a secret cabal of medical specialists. At a hidden hospital in the Brazilian rain forest, Natalie and Ben learn of the Guardians’ insidious methods. Huge sums are at stake as the arrogant Guardians make medical decisions largely motivated by greed. The action, which begins plausibly, becomes less so as the tension builds. Still, Palmer, himself an M.D., does a good job of informing the reader on an important ethical issue.” Publishers Weekly

The Lost Army of Cambyses by Paul Sussman

“A cinematic, rip-roaring adventure mystery, brimming with details of Egyptian archaeology and history. Niceties such as character development and believable dialogue are swept aside in a tale that begins with the army of the title, which utterly disappeared in a raging sandstorm. Cut to the present day, when Tara Mullvay, zoologist, finally decides to visit her archaeologist father in Egypt and finds him dead. Meanwhile, inspector Yusuf Khalifa of Luxor is investigating two murders, both of which involve ancient artifacts and a mutilated corpse. Tara soon finds that a small artifact her father left for her has put her in grave danger, and Yusuf tracks a connection between his murders and Tara’s father’s demise in interesting ways. Tara’s initial meeting with an old lover and their subsequent encounter with a cobra eerily echo Indiana Jones, while Khalifa’s warm family life and gentle practice of Islam are aligned against an Islamic terrorist group whose tactics are chillingly recognizable. A glossary aids in tracking the rich lode of Egyptology (the author is an archaeologist). ” Booklist

The Genesis Code by Christopher Forrest

“First off, please be aware this is not a reissue of John Case’s first novel, also titled The Genesis Code (1997), although there are similarities: both stories deal with genetics, DNA, and murder. Forrest’s novel (his first) begins with the murder of a noted geneticist whose recent discovery of a coded message hidden inside human DNA will rock the world . . . if the scientist’s killers allow it to be revealed. Standing between these nasty conspirators (part of an ancient, secret organization) and their goal to keep the DNA code under wraps is the murdered geneticist’s protégé, Christian Madison, whose only hope of staying alive is to crack the code, break the ancient conspiracy, and stay one step ahead of the bad guys. Forrest incorporates a number of historical elements, such as the Mayans, Nostradamus, and the Sumerians. This is the sort of ambitious plot that James Rollins, say, in his Sigma Force novels, pulls off with panache. Forrest doesn’t write with the same fevered excitement as Rollins, but he generates enough narrative thrust of his own to keep thriller fans panting.” Booklist

The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud by Julia Navarro

“The Da Vinci Code, in all its many incarnations, has a lot to answer for. This latest entry in the religious suspense sweepstakes is by a bestselling Spanish novelist, who stirs up the pot by mixing fact and fiction to tell what happened to the legendary Shroud of Turin, supposedly Jesus’ burial garment. Several centuries of sturm und drang—including perhaps one severed tongue too many—whiz by, lightened only by the odd liturgical chant, as reader Langton uses his best Masterpiece Theater British accent to hit the high points. Of course there’s a modern detective who develops some new leads. But unless you positively can’t live without your daily dose of anti-Vatican paranoia, this is probably one to skip.” Publishers Weekly

Labyrinth by Kate Mosse “Mosse’s page-turner takes readers on another quest for the Holy Grail, this time with two closely linked female protagonists born 800 years apart. In 2005, Alice Tanner stumbles into a hidden cave while on an archeological dig in southwest France. Her discovery—two skeletons and a labyrinth pattern engraved on the wall and on a ring—triggers visions of the past and propels her into a dangerous race against those who want the mystery of the cave for themselves. Alaïs, in the year 1209, is a plucky 17-year-old living in the French city of Carcassone, an outpost of the tolerant Cathar Christian sect that has been declared heretical by the Catholic Church. As Carcassonne comes under siege by the Crusaders, Alaïs’s father, Bertrand Pelletier,entrusts her with a book that is part of a sacred trilogy connected to the Holy Grail. Guardians of the trilogy are operating against evil forces—including Alaïs’s sister, Oriane, a traitorous, sexed-up villainess who wants the books for her own purposes. Sitting securely in the historical religious quest genre, Mosse’s fluently written third novel (after Crucifix Lane) may tantalize (if not satisfy) the legions of Da VinciCode devotees with its promise of revelation about Christianity’s truths.” Publishers Weekly

Gospel Truths by J.G. Sandom

“Sandom’s masterful first novel, based on a true incident, spins a complicated web of corruption, greed, and deception that connects international banking, high Vatican officials, notorious fascist scoundrels, and the London police. Detective Inspector Nigel Lyman falls heir to the reopened case of an Italian banker’s suicide on Blackfriar’s Bridge; he soon finds himself in Amiens, France, deeply involved in the search for a lost Gnostic gospel that could topple the Church. By turns contemplative, descriptive, and emotive, this mixture of mystery and intrigue reveals intense preparation and fine writing.” Library JournalThe First Patient by Michael Palmer

“From the blockbuster, New York Times bestselling author comes a high-concept, high-octane thriller at the crossroads of presidential politics and cutting-edge medicine. . . .Gabe Singleton and Andrew Stoddard were roommates at the Naval Academy in Annapolis years ago. Today, Gabe is a country doctor and his friend Andrew has gone from war hero to governor to President of the United States. One day, while the United States is embroiled in a bitter presidential election campaign, Marine One lands on Gabe’s Wyoming ranch, and President Stoddard delivers a disturbing revelation and a startling request. His personal physician has suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, and he desperately needs Gabe to take the man’s place. Despite serious misgivings, Gabe agrees to come to Washington. It is not until he is ensconced in the White House medical office that Gabe realizes there is strong evidence that the President is going insane. Facing a crisis of conscience-as President Stoddard’s physician, he has the power to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment to transfer presidential power to the Vice President-Gabe uncovers increasing evidence that his friend’s condition may not be due to natural causes. Who? Why? And how? The President’s life is at stake. A small-town doctor suddenly finds himself in the most powerful position on earth, and the safety of the world is in jeopardy. Gabe Singleton must find the answers, and the clock is ticking. . . .With Michael Palmer’s trademark medical details, and steeped in meticulous political insider knowledge, The First Patient is an unforgettable story of suspense.” Amazon

The Sacred Bones by Michael Byrnes

“Fans of Da Vinci Code knockoffs will welcome Byrnes’s first novel. When an ancient stone burial box known as an ossuary is stolen from a secret crypt beneath the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, readers will immediately intuit that the bones contained in the box are those of Jesus Christ, even though it takes quite a bit longer for the characters to admit as much. American geneticist Charlotte Hennesey is summoned to the Vatican along with Dr. Giovanni Bersei, an anthropologist, to study the ossuary. Back in Jerusalem, Arabs, Jews and Christians bicker, protest, fight and scheme against one another both within and outside the Temple Mount. A ruthlessly efficient Vatican hit man, Salvatore Conte, hovers over the action. Venal cardinals, contemptuous Israelis, Knights Templar and evil popes round out a familiar cast. Byrnes puts a more contemporary spin on his material than most authors of religious thrillers.” Publishers Weekly

Bestiary by Robert Masello

“In his latest, Masello lets loose a stable of thriller stereotypes and drives them hastily, but not unskillfully, through a sprawling adventure story complete with shady foreigners, ancient codes and terrible monsters. Sinister Iraqi zillionaire Mohammad Al-Kalli hires Beth Cox, a medieval manuscript expert, to translate and restore his family’s thousand-year-old bestiary, a medieval compendium of mythical animals painstakingly copied out by monks, replete with Da Vinci Code–style hidden messages couched in dead languages. As it turns out, the creatures catalogued there—a mix of Jurassic Park–like prehistoric monsters—are all too real and held in Al-Kalli’s secret menagerie, which Beth’s paleontologist husband has been hired, also by Al-Kalli, to study.. Masello throws into the mix an Elmore Leonardesque lowlife who’s trying to blackmail Al-Kalli, a 24-style terrorist plot to immolate Los Angeles, Tom Clancyesque weapons specs (“the Beretta… featured a delayed locking block system, which provided a faster cycle time and exceptional accuracy”), an eerily sleepless infant à la The Ring and a spooky original touch in the 9,000-year-old corpse dredged out of L.A.’s La Brea tar pits. Masello has a difficult time keeping together all these busy, dissonant subplots, but even if they don’t mesh, each one is a well-wrought genre turn with colorful characters and punchy writing. The result is a diverting trip that may make you think twice before going back to the zoo.” Publishers Weekly

So have fun reading!

New Thriller Adventure books to read/watch for…Part I

The list below is a collection of new(er) books from favorite authors of mine like Matt Reilly, James Rollins, F. Paul Wilson, and others I have yet to read. Some of these are in my TBR stack, others I don’t have, but are in the same basic action genre that I love, and they look interesting to me. Some are in genres of action/adventure, religious thrillers a la Da Vinci Code, some are more militaristic, and others more political. All I can guarantee is that you’ll find something to interest you if you like the genre at all.

The 6 Sacred Stones by Matthew Reilly

“Unlocking the secret of the Seven Ancient Wonders was only the beginning…

After their thrilling exploits in Matthew Reilly’s rampaging New York Times bestseller, 7 Deadly Wonders, supersoldier Jack West Jr. and his loyal team of adventurers are back, and now they face an all-but-impossible challenge. A mysterious ceremony in an unknown location has unraveled their work and triggered a catastrophic countdown that will climax in no less than the end of all life on Earth. But there is one last hope. If Jack and his team can find and rebuild a legendary ancient device known only as the “Machine,” they might be able to ward off the coming armageddon. The only clues to locating this Machine, however, are held within the fabled Six Sacred Stones, long lost in the fog of history.

And so the hunt begins for the Six Sacred Stones and the all-important knowledge they possess, but in the course of this wild adventure Jack and his team will discover that they are not the only ones seeking the Stones and that there might just be other players out there who don’t want to see the world saved at all. From Stonehenge in England to the deserts of Egypt to the spectacular Three Gorges region of China, The 6 Sacred Stones will take you on a nonstop roller-coaster ride through ancient history, modern military hardware, and some of the fastest and most mind-blowing action you will ever read.” Amazon

Antarktos Rising by Jeremy Robinson

“A phenomenon known as crustal displacement shifts the Earth’s crust, repositioning continents and causing countless deaths. In the wake of the global catastrophe, the world struggles to take care of its displaced billions. But Antarctica, freshly thawed and blooming, has emerged as a new hope. Rather than wage a world war no nation can endure, the leading nations devise a competition, a race to the center of Antarctica, with the three victors dividing the continent. It is within this race that Mirabelle Whitney, one of the few surviving experts on the continent, grouped with an American special forces unit, finds herself. But the dangers awaiting the team are far worse than feared; beyond the sour history of a torn family, beyond the nefarious intentions of their human enemies, beyond the ancient creatures reborn through anhydrobiosis-there are the Nephilim. The world races to claim a new continent, only to find it already taken.” Amazon

The Rozabal Line by Shawn Haigins

“The Rozabal Line is a suspenseful novel about modern-day religious tensions. Father Vincent Morgan becomes immersed in a storm of controversy over the ancient tomb of Rozabal in Kashmir, which has contained the body of the saint Yuz Asaf since 112 A.D. Caught in the crossroads between extreme Islamic fundamentalists and the equally extreme fundamentalists of the Crux Decussata Permuta, Morgan must question whether the world-altering secret held within Rozabal should be revealed at all. Religious wrath, ruthless controversy spanning the globe, and the threat of nuclear destruction make for a gripping read from cover to cover.” Midwest Book Review

The Last Oracle: A Novel by James Rollins

Available 6/24/08 – No other information

The Hunt for Atlantis by Andy McDermott

“This is another new author to me and that is because this is his first novel. You would think that a storyline which involved searching for the lost city of Atlantis would have been done to death by now, but this is a very good first novel for the author. The author is very adept at generating excitement and the book is fast paced. Like some of the previous reviewers I found it very difficult to put down.

A young female archaeologist believes that she has found the location of the lost city of Atlantis. She obviously would like to be able to prove this fact. The problem she has is that someone wants her dead. The main character Nina Wilde, the said archaeologist is a believable and likeable person and the reader can relate to her character and her race against time to find lost secret . . .

The book was very enjoyable and I was sorry when it ended. I believe the author has another book in the pipeline called The Tomb of Hercules and I shall certainly be looking out for it when it is published.” Amazon reader review by J. Chippendale

Blasphemy by Douglas Preston

“The world’s biggest supercollider, locked in an Arizona mountain, was built to reveal the secrets of the very moment of creation: the Big Bang itself.The Torus is the most expensive machine ever created by humankind, run by the world’s most powerful supercomputer. It is the brainchild of Nobel Laureate William North Hazelius. Will the Torus divulge the mysteries of the creation of the universe? Or will it, as some predict, suck the earth into a mini black hole? Or is the Torus a Satanic attempt, as a powerful televangelist decries, to challenge God Almighty on the very throne of Heaven?Twelve scientists under the leadership of Hazelius are sent to the remote mountain to turn it on, and what they discover must be hidden from the world at all costs. Wyman Ford, ex-monk and CIA operative, is tapped to wrest their secret, a secret that will either destroy the world…or save it.The countdown begins… ” Amazon

Event: A Novel (Event Group Thrillers) by David Lynn Golemon

“Former Special Ops member Golemon puts his military experience to good use in this promising debut sure to satisfy fans of The X-Files. Maj. Jack Collins, whose career was jeopardized after he testified truthfully before Congress about a debacle in Afghanistan, is given a new lease on life after he’s drafted into the Event Group, a covert organization that hides behind the facade of the National Archives. The group’s shadowy leaders reveal to Collins that they have secretly served every U.S. president since Lincoln, tracking down artifacts like Noah’s Ark in the interest of national security. Collins receives a baptism of fire when the downing of a military aircraft appears to be the work of the same kind of UFOs responsible for the legendary Roswell incident in 1947. While the climactic scenes may be a bit too reminiscent of the parody horror film Tremors for some, the plotting and hair’s-breadth escapes evoke some of the early work of Preston and Child, and the author’s premise offers a rich lode of materials for the inevitable sequels.” Publishers Weekly

“Dedicated to discovering the truth behind the myths and legends propagated throughout world history, the Event Group—an agency within the U.S. government that officially doesn’t exist—ensures that mistakes from the past are never repeated.” SFSignal.com

Legend: An Event Group Adventure by David Lynn Golemon

“Golemon’s second thriller fails to deliver on the promise of his first, Event (2006), which introduced the exploits of a supersecret U.S. government agency, the Event Group. The author, a former U.S. Army Special Ops member, draws the reader in with an intriguing prologue: in 1534, explorer Francisco Pizarro and his men, in their search for El Dorado, encounter a vicious creature determined to guard the legendary treasure trove; in 1876, at Custer’s last stand, Capt. Myles Keogh takes to his death a secret from hundreds of years in the past. In the present day, the intrepid men and women of the Event Group follow the trail of Pizarro’s expedition in an effort both to find the lost Incan gold Pizarro was seeking and to rescue the U.S. president’s daughter, who has disappeared while on the same quest. A shortage of well-developed characters and plausible scientific speculation, however, makes this a less satisfying adventure than its predecessor.” Publishers Weekly

Ancients: An Event Group Adventure by David Lynn Golemon

Available 7/8/08

“Go down a river of no return, toward a fateful meeting with an animal that predates mankind’s existence by ninety million years—after a treasure that has captured man’s desires for centuries. This is what Legends are made of. The year 1533: Sent by Francisco Pizarro, Captain Hernando Padilla and his small Spanish expedition found the legend that men had only dared to whisper.”

“But one soldier survives the bloody savagery and, before dying, shares his story with a lone priest in Peru. A secret the Vatican quickly buried away. The Present: Professor Helen Zachary is searching for a hidden legend, buried deep within the Amazon Basin—a great beast who has survived there since the dawn of time, a being ready to plunge modern science into a world of darkness. And into this darkness, Professor Zachary and her team vanish. Now a letter from a colleague of Zachary’s sends the Event Group, led by Major Jack Collins, chasing down the professor’s lost expedition and into the legendary darkness of the Amazon.” SFSignal.com

The Venetian Betrayal: A Novel by Steve Berry

“In 323 B.C.E, having conquered Persia, Alexander the Great set his sights on Arabia, then suddenly succumbed to a strange fever. Locating his final resting place–unknown to this day–remains a tantalizing goal for both archaeologists and treasure hunters. Now the quest for this coveted prize is about to heat up. And Cotton Malone–former U.S. Justice Department agent turned rare-book dealer–will be drawn into an intense geopolitical chess game. After narrowly escaping incineration in a devastating fire that consumes a Danish museum, Cotton learns from his friend, the beguiling adventurer Cassiopeia Vitt, that the blaze was neither an accident nor an isolated incident. As part of campaign of arson intended to mask a far more diabolical design, buildings across Europe are being devoured by infernos of unnatural strength.

And from the ashes of the U.S.S.R., a new nation has arisen: Former Soviet republics have consolidated into the Central Asian Federation. At its helm is Supreme Minister Irina Zovastina, a cunning despot with a talent for politics, a taste for blood sport, and the single-minded desire to surpass Alexander the Great as history’s ultimate conqueror.
Backed by a secret cabal of powerbrokers, the Federation has amassed a harrowing arsenal of biological weapons. Equipped with the hellish power to decimate other nations at will, only one thing keeps Zovastina from setting in motion her death march of domination: a miraculous healing serum, kept secret by an ancient puzzle and buried with the mummified remains of Alexander the Great–in a tomb lost to the ages for more than 1,500 years. Together, Cotton and Cassiopeia must outrun and outthink the forces allied against them. Their perilous quest will take them to the shores of Denmark, deep into the venerated monuments of Venice, and finally high inside the desolate Pamir mountains of Central Asia to unravel a riddle whose solution could destroy or save millions of people–depending on who finds the lost tomb first.” Amazon

The Judas Strain: A Novel by James Rollins

“The crack, ultrasecret Sigma Force team returns in another adventure that, as usual, unfolds at breakneck speed. Sigma Force, made up of former Special Forces officers trained as experts in various scientific fields (“killer scientists,” one of their number calls them), scours the world for technologies that could help or threaten the U.S. This time the group’s mission involves a devastating bacteriological plague, a mysterious cryptogram that may predate humanity, and the deadly truth about what happened after Marco Polo’s expedition to China. After a handful of Sigma Force novels, Rollins has fine-tuned the formula to precision: characters rendered in broad strokes, punchy dialogue, short paragraphs that propel us headlong through the story. The novels are like prose versions of comic books, or lightly fleshed out movie treatments. But this is not a criticism, at least not completely. The books’ style perfectly matches their subject matter, and it’s impossible not to be swept up by their energy and excitement. Action/adventure fans unfamiliar with Rollins’ work should be emphatically urged to read this series.” Booklist

Solomon’s Key: The Codis Project by R. Douglas Weber

“A smart, intelligent thriller with something for everyone. This new religious conspiracy genre created by Dan Brown has had many knock-offs. None, however, have the depth and scope of Weber’s novel. He peels away the glossy finish you find in most spy thrillers, prying deeply into his two major female character’s motivations, flaws, and past. The visceral action of Ludlum combined with the realism of John Le’Carre’.” The Guardian

Grail Conspiracy: A Cotten Stone Mystery by Lynn Sholes

“On assignment in the Middle East, television journalist Cotten Stone stumbles upon an archeological dig that uncovers the world’s most-sought-after religious relic: the Holy Grail. With his last dying breath, Dr. Gabriel Archer gives it to Cotten, uttering “You are the only one” in a language she’s heard from only one other person–her deceased twin sister.

What begins as a hot news story for the ambitious young reporter soon turns into a nightmare when the Holy Grail is stolen and strange “accidents” befall her dearest friends. Running for her life, she turns to John Tyler, a priest with firsthand knowledge of religious artifacts, for help. An anonymous source leads them to New Orleans during Mardi Gras, where an abominable experiment is underway that–unless destroyed–promises to unleash an ancient evil upon the Earth.” Amazon

Last Secret, The: A Cotten Stone Mystery by Lynn Sholes

“In this riveting follow-up to The Grail Conspiracy, famed journalist Cotten Stone is at the top of her craft until one of her discoveries is proven to be a hoax. Without a steady job, credibility, or a shred of self-respect, the struggling reporter fades from the limelight. A year later at a famous Inca site, she unearths a crystal tablet that predicts the Great Flood and another final “cleansing”-yet to take place-to be led by the daughter of an angel.

According to the Venatori-an ancient sociof spiritual warriors-a series of these sacred tablets exist . . . and the last one holds the key to surviving Armegeddon. Racing to recover this last secret before the Fallen ones, Cotten comes face to face with her terrifying destiny, a legacy to battle the Son of the Dawn until the End of Days.” Amazon

Hades Project, The: A Cotten Stone Mystery by Lynn Sholes

“Forged by the seventh generation grandson of Adam, used to pierce the side of Christ at the Crucifixion, and possessed by some of history’s most powerful men—Constantine, Attila the Hun, Adolf Hitler, Harry Truman—the Holy Lance is about to be used again. The Forces of Evil intend to use the ancient relic to launch the Hades Project and bring humankind to its knees. From the Kremlin to the Vatican to an Ethiopian church housing the Ark of the Covenant, Cotten Stone races to find the Holy Lance. Time is running out as Cotten confronts the man who holds in his hand the destiny of the world, a man who died more than 85 years earlier.” Amazon

Plague Ship (Oregon Files) by Clive Cussler

Available 6/2/08 (Book #5 in the series, Starting with Golden Buddha (2003), Sacred Stone (2004), Dark Watch (2005), and Skeleton Coast (2006)

Deeper: A Novel by Jeff Long

“*Starred Review* In The Descent (1999), Long introduced us to hell: not the biblical hell, but the actual place. Hell, it turns out, is an underground world where a nasty race of humanoids called hadals lived for millennia, occasionally coming to the surface and wreaking havoc. In The Descent, the hadals were wiped out, or so we thought. Now, 10 years later, humans have colonized the Subterrain, but they’re about to find out that some hadals have survived and that you can’t really kill Satan. At least as exciting as its predecessor, this flashy, fast-paced sequel features a motley crew of characters—including one of the human survivors of the last novel, Ali Von Schade, who ventures deep into hell to rescue children who were abducted from the surface. In addition to Ali, the characters include a NASA researcher who spent two years exploring hell and who now has massive physical deformities, including a pair of horns; the mother of one of the missing children, whose journey into the Subterrain takes an unexpected toll on her; a filmmaker who disappeared into hell several years ago and who seems to have survived its perils; and a Navy SEAL sniper. Long has a knack for telling stories with inherently over-the-top premises, but he tells them so well and with such passion that we are brought totally under his spell. His characters are real and complex, his dialogue sharp, and his narrative stylish and frightening. This is one case where readers should be enthusiastically encouraged to go to hell.” Booklist

The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston

“In the nonfiction tradition of John Berendt (“Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”) and Erik Larson (“The Devil in the White City”), New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston presents a gripping account of crime and punishment in the lush hills surrounding Florence, Italy.In 2000, Douglas Preston fulfilled a dream to move his family to Italy.Then he discovered that the olive grove in front of their 14th century farmhouse had been the scene of the most infamous double-murders in Italian history, committed by a serial killer known as the Monster of Florence. Preston, intrigued, meets Italian investigative journalist Mario Spezi to learn more. This is the true story of their search for–and identification of–the man they believe committed the crimes, and their chilling interview with him. And then, in a strange twist of fate, Preston and Spezi themselves become targets of the police investigation. Preston has his phone tapped, is interrogated, and told to leave the country. Spezi fares worse: he is thrown into Italy’s grim Capanne prison, accused of being the Monster of Florence himself.Like one of Preston’s thrillers, The Monster Of Florence, tells a remarkable and harrowing story involving murder, mutilation, and suicide-and at the center of it, Preston and Spezi, caught in a bizarre prosecutorial vendetta.” Amazon

The 13th Apostle by Richard and Rachael Heller

“The Hellers, a husband-and-wife team known for their health titles (The Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet, etc.) make a thrilling fiction debut in this fast-paced, well-researched adventure, a foray into Da Vinci Code–style papal mystery. American cybersleuth Gil Pearson, a semifamous antihacker, gets tapped to help translate an ancient copper scroll that’s meant to lead to a fabulous treasure. Accompanied by striking, strong Sabbie Karaim, a translator and former Israeli military operative, Gil travels to Israel, where he’s introduced to the dangerous conspiracy that surrounds the scroll, and soon realizes the perilous position he’s gotten himself into; apparently, the scroll contains not just a treasure map but the truth about the life and death of Jesus. As rival factions try to claim the scroll for their own agendas (to protect Christianity, to destroy Christianity, etc.), Gil and Sabbie head on a breakneck quest around the globe trying stay one step ahead of their pursuers while teasing out the secrets of the age-old document. A satisfying, well-structured entry into the still-hot subgenre, the Hellers have a definite crowd-pleaser on their hands—assuming it doesn’t get buried in a saturated market.” Publishers Weekly

The Shell Game by Steve Alten

“Steve Alten proves his versatility in his latest thriller THE SHELL GAME, a tour-de-force thriller tackling oil, politics, and the state of the world. Controversial, shocking, meticulously researched, and sure to raise many eyebrows in Washington, Alten has produced both a dazzling political thriller and to a cautionary tale for our times. Anyone interested in the labyrinthine world of politics, international gamemanship, and the control of oil in society needs to read this book.” Douglas Preston

Rembrandt’s Ghost by Paul Christopher

“There is truth in art. But the truth can kill.

Young archaeologist Finn Ryan is laboring for a London auction house when she gets some unlikely luck. Along with the handsome young nobleman Billy Pilgrim, she’s inherited a house in Amsterdam, a cargo ship off Borneo South Pacific, and what appears to be a fake Rembrandt.

But the fake hides a real Rembrandt portrait, which in turn hides a clue to a centuries-old mystery. Finn and Billy aren’t the only ones who know what is at stake-and what is waiting to be found at the bottom of the South Pacific. Pursued around the globe by ruthless adversaries, Finn and Billy are thrown into the hunt for a forgotten treasure that could change their lives forever-or end their lives in an instant.” Amazon

The Sanctuary by Raymond Khoury

“Here is one of those novels that spans centuries, interweaves stories from past and present, and involves a brave hero trying to uncover the truth behind an ancient conspiracy that unnamed individuals will kill to protect. It’s hardly a new premise, but here’s the good thing: in Khoury’s hands, it feels fresh and exciting again. When archaeology professor Evelyn Bishop is kidnapped, her daughter, Mia, vows to find her and to find the secret behind the artifacts that apparently led to Evelyn’s abduction. Her odyssey takes her into unexpected corners of history, quickly putting her own life at risk. The action takes place mostly in Iraq but also journeys to eighteenth-century Italy and present-day Lebanon. The large cast of characters includes plenty of villainous types, including “the hakeem,” a doctor whose grisly medical experiments seem linked to a centuries-old mystery. There are dozens of ways this novel could have collapsed under its own narrative weight, but Khoury makes the conspiracy feel utterly believable and imbues his characters with infectious passion for finding the truth. A surefire hit with fans of conspiracy-based historical thrillers.” Booklist

Michelangelo’s Notebook by Paul Christopher

“Life may imitate art…but death follows it.

While studying art history at New York University, brilliant and beautiful Finn Ryan makes a startling discovery: a Michelangelo drawing of a dissected corpse-supposedly from the artist’s near-mythical notebook. But that very night, someone breaks into her apartment-murdering her boyfriend and stealing the sketches she made of the drawing. Fleeing for her life, Finn heads to the address her mother had given her for emergencies, where she finds the enigmatic antiquarian book dealer, Michael Valentine. Together, they embark on a desperate race through the city-and through the pages of history itself-to expose an electrifying secret from the final days of World War II-a secret that lies in the dark labyrinthine heart of the Vatican.” Amazon

The Pegasus Secret by Gregg Loomis

“Shortly after ex-spy Lang Reilly’s sister dies in an explosion in her Paris home, a reproduction of a painting by the 17th-century artist Poussin, which his sister bought the day before she died and which includes an odd Latin inscription, disappears from Lang’s home. With police and killers on his trail, Lang embarks on a journey to Italy to uncover the painting’s secrets as well as its connection to his sister, enlisting the help of a former co-worker, the German killing-machine Gurt Fuchs. Somewhat dry excerpts from a medieval account of the Knights of the Temple punctuate the action, hinting that the mystery is more complex than Lang can imagine. The international setting and fast-paced action grip, and fortunately, Loomis’s convincing protagonist possesses the intelligence and emotional depth to carry the reader through some unlikely scenarios (e.g., in an airport bathroom stall, Lang constructs a fake gun out of candy). Though the momentum sometimes lags, each scene is vivid enough to keep the reader engaged. Some may find the book’s secret societies and art history themes a trifle unoriginal, but others looking to repeat The Da Vinci Code experience will be satisfied.” Publisher’s Weekly First of the Lang Reilley books, followed by The Julian Secret and The Sinai Secret (below).

The Sinai Secret by Gregg Loomis

Available 3/08 – from the publisher: “A scientist in Amsterdam—murdered. Another scientist in Atlanta—murdered, and his journal stolen. At first Lang Reilly seemed to be the only connection. After all, both scientists worked for his foundation. But when someone took a shot at Lang to scare him away, it only made him more determined to find the truth.

Lang’s search will lead him along a twisted trail to Brussels, Cairo, Vienna, Tel Aviv…and deep into the secrets of the past. What’s the connection between the murdered scientists and an ancient parchment, recently unearthed? What revelations does it contain, and what powerful group is willing to kill to make sure its secrets remain hidden? With the balance of power in the Middle East at risk, Lang has to stay alive long enough to find the answer to a mystery that has puzzled historians for centuries.”

On the Fifth Day by A. J. Hartley

“In Hartley’s newest, disgraced English teacher Thomas Knight confronts a church conspiracy of silence surrounding the death of his brother, Father Edward Knight, while on a research trip in the Philippines. Looking to make sense of it all, Thomas’s search leads him from Italy to Japan to the site of his brother’s death, all the while narrowly escaping agents of unknown origin who seem hellbent on stopping him. With the distinction between friends and enemies becoming more fluid all the time, Knight falls in with his ex-wife at the State Department, a priestly colleague of his brother’s and a murderous biologist to discover a secret that threatens, yes, the very foundations of Christianity. Not only is Hartley’s novel well paced, with enough twists and turns to keep most thriller fans satisfied, he avoids the missteps of most attempts to cash in on the Da Vinci Code zeitgeist by focusing on the faithful rather than freewheeling conspiracies; his is a welcome take that considers thoughtfully, if at times clumsily, issues of belief and doubt. Though the action occasionally snags on some repetitive character details, this slam-bang title is a very fun, surprisingly satisfying read.” Publishers Weekly

The Messiah Code by Michael Cordy

“At the moment of his supreme triumph, a man of science dodges an assassin’s bullet and loses everything that truly matters in his life. Now only a miracle can save Dr. Tom Carter’s dying daughter: the blood of salvation shed twenty centuries ago.

In the volatile heart of the Middle East, amid the devastating secrets of an ancient brotherhood awaiting a new messiah, Tom Carter must search for answers to the mysteries that have challenged humankind since the death and resurrection of the greatest Healer who ever walked the Earth. Because suddenly Carter’s life, the life of his little girl, and the fate of the world hang in the balance …

After two thousand years, the wait is over …” Amazon

The Magdalene Cipher by Jim Hougan

“From the shadows of history — out of the ancient prophecies and sacred texts — comes a conspiracy so vast, so deep, so earth-shattering that the CIA itself is merely a cover for it.

The ritualistic slaughter of a college professor right under the nose of CIA agent Jack Dunphy has damned the disgraced operative to a living hell of paper-pushing obscurity. But Dunphy’s not ready to surrender his career until he uncovers the truth behind his demotion — embarking on a covert investigation that’s leading him into a world he never dreamed existed. And following a twisted trail of lies, Jack’s about to become ensnared in a monstrous international web spun by a secret society as old as civilization.

Escape is impossible — because the players are too powerful, the consequences are too deadly . . . and what’s at stake is no less than the destiny of the human race.” Amazon

Gates of Hades by Gregg Loomis

“Jason Peters works for Narcom, a company that handles jobs too dangerous or politically risky for U.S. intelligence agencies. But when his house is attacked and he barely escapes the smoking wreckage, he knows this new case is out of the ordinary, even for him.

Jason will travel the globe—from Washington, D.C., to the Dominican Republic, to the volcanoes of Sicily—in a desperate race to uncover the ancient secret that lies at the heart of an unimaginable—and very deadly—plot.” Dorchester Publishing

Splintered Icon by Bill Napier

“In this suspenseful Da Vinci Code knockoff from British author Napier (Nemesis), Harry Blake, an antiquarian book dealer specializing in old maps and manuscripts, agrees to help Sir Toby Tebbit translate a 400-year-old journal, written in code, that Sir Toby has inherited from a heretofore unknown relative in Jamaica. The manuscript chronicles the adventures of a young cabin boy, James Ogilvie, who traveled to the Americas as part of a secret mission for the Elizabethan crown. When a mysterious woman approaches Blake about buying the journal, he refuses to sell. Later, Blake returns to the Tebbit household to discover that Sir Toby has been brutally murdered. Teaming up with rival historian Zola Kahn and Sir Toby’s daughter, Debbie, the trio soon join a race to determine the meaning behind Ogilvie’s encrypted text. A trail reaching as far back as the Crusades leads toward a holy relic that could be worth millions—or could be the key to a worldwide terrorist plot. Deftly mixing history, science and fiction, Napier keeps the action escalating toward a satisfying climax.” Publishers Weekly

The Lure by Bill Napier

“In a top-secret research facility, a team of scientists receive an unexpected message from the depths of space.At first, the blizzard of sub-nuclear particles seemed random. But soon a pattern emerges that could only have come from an alien intelligence far more advanced than our own. Now it’s up to Irish mathematician Tom Petrie to decode these messages and unlock their secret—one that is believed to contain an unimaginable technological breakthrough, and has the power to change the course of human history…unless the world’s superpowers succeed in suppressing the truth. Can Petrie and his team unmask the message’s true intent while evading those who aim to crush its extraordinary revelations? A desperate race against time—and through space—is about to begin….” Amazon

“Incredible…extraordinary.” Jeff Long
“Fans of Dan Brown take note.” Jack Du Brul
“Deftly mixing history, science, and fiction, Napier keeps the action escalating…” Publishers Weekly

The Lucifer Code by Michael Cordy

“Lucifer The Light Age has dawned. Light divides the universe into two: day and night. Good and evil. Life and death. Now its power, harnessed by a new generation of optical computers, attempts to answer mankind’s last great question: What happens to us when we die? But this is perilous knowledge, as Dr. Miles Fleming, a brilliant young neurologist discovers. To find the truth he must challenge the certainties of both science and religion, and embark on a journey that jeopardizes his most basic assumptions and beliefs. On reaching the final terrifying revelation he realizes that there are perhaps some things mankind should never know. For shining a light on the truth can sometimes reveal the darkest
recesses of hell itself. ” Amazon

Dark Passage by Junius Podrug

“What if Islamic assassins from the present were somehow able to go back in time to Galilee circa A.D. 30 and target Jesus for termination? Podrug takes this melodramatic premise and runs with it in this gripping adventure yarn that melds elements of science fiction with the big-screen biblical epics of the 1950s. Three unlikely but resourceful characters–an action-film star, an ex-nun who ministers to prostitutes, and an Israeli engineer-convict–are sent back in time in a desperate attempt to foil the terrorists’ plan to change history. The historical details are fascinating–filled with enough sword fights, chariot races, and orgies to make Cecil B. DeMille proud. The one-dimensional modern-day terrorists pale in comparison to the real villain, the wickedly salacious Queen Salome, who pops up now and then to seduce a centurion or torture an unfortunate prisoner. The provocative ending may offend some of the fundamentalist folk, but adventure, alternate-history, and historical fiction fans should find this an enjoyable read.” Booklist

The Medici Dagger by Cameron West

“”Let he who finds the Dagger use it for noble purpose. That was my father’s plan. And now it’s mine.” That stirring cry from Hollywood stunt man Reb Barnett occurs near the midway point of this laughable thriller about the search for a legendary dagger of unbreakable metal forged by Leonardo da Vinci, who hid the weapon and then left clues to its whereabouts in a manuscript called “The Circles of Truth.” Twenty years ago, a courier sent by Barnett’s museum curator father to retrieve the manuscript disappeared; that same night, Barnett’s parents died in a suspicious fire. Now a voice from the past drags Barnett into completing his father’s quest to find the dagger before munitions broker Werner Krell and his sadistic assassin, Nolo Tecci, can get their hands on it. The novel reads like a fleshed-out action film screenplay, with multiple locations, plenty of violent action, outrageously corny dialogue and the usual push-button tics that pass for characterization in Hollywood: Reb courts danger; Reb has a hard time expressing his feelings for his friend Archie Ferris and love interest Antonia Genevra Gianelli. West whose memoir, First Person Plural: My Life as a Multiple, was a New York Times bestseller has written what might be the world’s first stunt-thriller, a novel where at every moment you expect an off-page director to yell “Cut!” and order the real star in to flesh out the second unit shots that the stunt man just walked through. File this one under high concept, low execution. National advertising; 7-city author tour. (Sept. 11)Forecast: Film rights have been purchased. Tom Cruise will star. Enough said.” Publishers Weekly

Secret of the Sands by Rai Aren & Tavius E.

“In the shadow of the Great Sphinx of Giza, two young archaeologists unearth extremely unusual artifacts dating over 12,000 years old. Not only could this change everything we thought we knew about Ancient Egypt, but the exhilarating find is wrong – very wrong. The artifacts shouldn’t be there. . .they shouldn’t even exist at all. The greatest discovery in human history may also turn out to be the deadliest. . . Visit www.secretofthesands.com to learn more about the story that opens a window into the past, bringing this previously unknown and startling civilization to life.” Amazon

So have fun reading this round!

Books and things

I thought I’d take a look at what I’ve been reading lately: warning, the below are SF/Adventure in nature and as such, may bore some but then you never know – you might find one that catches your eye, esp. if it’s by Sheri Tepper, who’s more about people and morality than true SF.The first book is The Margarets by Sheri Tepper. I’m only a small way through so can’t comment too much. Without giving anything away, since this is in the blurb, the book is about a young girl living in the somewhat distant future on Phobos. Earth has used up it’s resources, and is forced to send people out to colonies or for trade. Young Margaret is bored, and so she develops some imaginary playmates.

Soon after the book starts, the Phobos station is closed and Margaret is forced to return to Earth, where strict population laws leave her subject to being shipped out as an indentured servant. It is at this point that most of her “imaginary” friends sort of “peel” off her and enter different lives on different planets, among different races.

At some point the Margarets are supposed to come together and save Earth, but right now I’m only beginning to learn about the lives of each Margaret. Each one is given a new name when coming to a new place, and all have varied lives. There are some possibly benevolent people who seeem to be able to pass between worlds, sort of like between manifolds (see Lady of Mazes below) who are watching over them.

The chapters are well-headed with the name of each Margaret and where she is so you don’t have to keep reading into the chapter to figure out which one it is.

My only beef so far, and this goes for some Matt Reilly books as well as other’s of Tepper’s, is that it has a nice list of cast of characters at the beginning of the book, and a list of races, organizations, planets and who lives there. Nice to refer too, but you have to kep flipping back and forth. Since this is a library book, my suggestion wouldn’t work for this one, but I would like a pull-out section of these Casts of Characters, or in Matt Reilly books, the infernal diagrams, which by the time they reach PB size, are in tiny print and hard to read – a nice tear out guide printed on shiny card stock would be nice to refer to without leaving your place and trying to find the map you want.

Before The Margarets, I read the “latest” in the Scarecrow series by Matt Reilly, Scarecrow. It was one of his typical adventure rides, this time about a bounty hunt for 12 men around the world who were the only ones tested with fast enough reflexes to disarm a super weapon. So it was all over Europe, non-stop action, and impossible feats – sort of Indiana Jones, Laura Croft meets James Bond and a dash of Superman. Fun. Not big on charcterization, but his charcters do have some life, esp. as they grow over the series, and you get more and more glimpes of them. He fleshes them out enough so that you care about what happens to them, but not so much it gets in the way of action.

Before that it was an ealier Shane Schofield “Scarecrow” book, Area 7 about a plot to assinate the President and take over the world by making the President look foolish and weak before the nation – again, non-stop action, lots of competing factions, but this time confined to two smaller areas, which allows for the maps of the places, and some new sides to the main characters, and high body count.

Before that Ice Station, the first “Scarecrow” book, set in a remote station in Antarctica, where a major discovery has been found, that some nations want, and others want kept quiet. This one has a child in it, as does Area 7, and that adds to the genuineness of the character’s motivations. The entire book pretty much takes place on/in the station (maps included!), and on the ice shelf around them. There is a hovercraft chase that could be straight out of MI, or the Fast and the Furious. Fun, Fun, plus sharks, blood, brains splattered, and his handy dandy Maghook, indispensible in a Shane Schofiled life!

Before that we go back to SF, and Karl Schroeder’s Ventus a strange story about a planet that is alive, and how it came to reconnect it’s “parts”. Can’t give away more, but a very long set-up and then an interesting and compelling denouement.

Prior to that was Scardown by Elizabeth Bear. The first of her Jenny Casey trilogy, set in the near future, although with technology, where Canada and China are the world’s superpowers. The books that follow are Hammered and Worldwired, about AIs and complete interface with their version of the WWW. Jenny Casey is a pilot of an alien spacecraft that was found on Mars as I recall, and where the human pilots are adapted with cypernetic properties that allow them to directly interface with the ship and it’s AI and become one. Great premise, interesting plot about superpowers, and their idiocy, and some great “hard” SF. Highly recommended.

Kay Kenyon’s The Seeds of Time is about another pilot, this one in a ship in the somewhat near future, which can “dive”, or move through time and a small amount of localized space, to find planets that hvae been sometime in the past in near-earth vicinity that might have plant-life that could put life on the now barren and ozone depleted Earth. Their mission is to bring back viable specimens and seeds to re-green the Earth, although there is a subplot, cross-plots, and the find of the century that may turn out to be either the best thing for Earth or the worst. Good book, but a trifle slow.

Lady of Mazes by Karl Schroeder was a fascinating glimpse of other worlds and our own galaxy in the far future, where some humans have broken off and formed their own “manifolds” in which they live and can travel between, and to them the unknown outside world controlled by a government that is hedonistic, and full of rules and regulations and government bueurocracy. (can’t spell that word for the life of me – never can). The book really got to me and it was a “hugger” – one of those books that, I at least, hug to myself when it’s done, as if “that’s all?” sort of thing. It leaves you wanting more – to go back to those worlds and explore them further. Rcommended reading for hard SF lovers, and anyone who likes to be challenged and open-boxed.

The last in the bunch not yet boxed up was Decipher by Stel Pavlou. Sort of a DaVinci Code meeets Indiana Jones (hmmm…sensing a pattern?). It’s about a bunch of crystals buried in various far-flung locations 12,000 years ago that need to be collected and placed on the Great Pyramid every 12,000 years to “save” the earth from the sun, but it also can bring unlimited power, so naturally, everyone is trying to get ahold of the crystals. Very Matt Reilly, but with some breathing room. One quote from the beginning of the book’s chapters caught my eye -

“[Out} of 6 million years, only 10,000 [fossilzed species] may be represented by surviving strata. In the unrecorded 5.9 million years there is time for even an advanced civilization to have come and gone, leaving hardly a trace…Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson, Forbidden Archaeology, `1996. Good read, but his first. Waiting for more!