Douglas Preston
The thrillers of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child "stand head and shoulders above their rivals" (Publishers Weekly). Preston & Child's RELIC and THE CABINET OF CURIOSITIES were chosen by readers in a National Public Radio poll as being among the 100 greatest thrillers ever written, and RELIC was made into a number-one box office hit movie. They are coauthors of the famed Pendergast series, and their recent novels include VERSES FOR THE DEAD, CITY OF ENDLESS NIGHT, THE OBSIDIAN CHAMBER, and BLUE LABYRINTH. In addition to his novels and nonfiction works (such as THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD) Preston writes about archaeology for the The New Yorker and National Geographic magazines.
Books by Douglas Preston
The Cabinet of Dr. Leng: A Pendergast Novel
by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller
Astoundingly, Constance Greene has found a way back to the place of her origins, New York City in the late 1800s, leaping at the chance, although it means leaving the present forever. Constance sets off on a quest to prevent the events that lead to the deaths of her sister and brother. But along the road to redemption, Manhattan's most infamous serial killer, Dr. Enoch Leng, lies in wait, ready to strike at the slightest provocation. Meanwhile, in contemporary New York, FBI Special Agent Pendergast feverishly searches for a way to reunite with Constance. But will he discover a way back to her before it's too late?
Bloodless: A Pendergast Novel
On the evening of November 24, 1971, D. B. Cooper hijacked Flight 305 with a fake bomb, collected a ransom of $200,000, and then parachuted from the rear of the plane, disappearing into the night…and into history. Fifty years later, Agent Pendergast takes on a bizarre and gruesome case: in the ghost-haunted city of Savannah, Georgia, bodies are found with no blood left in their veins --- sowing panic and reviving whispered tales of the infamous Savannah Vampire. As the mystery rises along with the body count, Pendergast and his partner, Agent Coldmoon, race to understand how --- or if --- these murders are connected to the only unsolved skyjacking in American history.
Diablo Mesa
Lucas Tappan, a wealthy and eccentric billionaire and founder of Icarus Space Systems, approaches the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute with an outlandish proposal --- to finance a careful, scientific excavation of the Roswell Incident site, where a UFO is alleged to have crashed in 1947. A skeptical Nora Kelly is tasked with the job. Nora's excavation immediately uncovers two murder victims buried at the site, faces and hands obliterated with acid to erase their identities. Special Agent Corrie Swanson is assigned to the case. As Nora's excavation proceeds, uncovering things both bizarre and seemingly inexplicable, Corrie's homicide investigation throws open a Pandora's box of espionage and violence.
The Scorpion's Tail
A mummified corpse is found in the cellar of an abandoned building in a remote New Mexico ghost town. Rookie FBI Agent Corrie Swanson is assigned to ID the body and determine the cause of death. She brings archaeologist Nora Kelly to excavate the body and lend her expertise to the investigation, and together they uncover something unexpected and shocking: the deceased apparently died in agony, in a fetal position, skin coming off in sheets, with a rictus of horror frozen on his face. Hidden on the corpse lies a 16th-century Spanish gold cross of immense value. When at last they identify the body --- and the bizarre cause of death --- Corrie and Nora open a door into a terrifying, secret world of ancient treasure and modern obsession.
Crooked River: A Pendergast Novel
Appearing out of nowhere to horrify the quiet resort town of Sanibel Island, Florida, dozens of identical, ordinary-looking shoes float in on the tide and are washed up on the tropical beach --- each one with a crudely severed human foot inside. In short order, Agent Pendergast finds himself facing the most complex and inexplicable challenge of his career: a tangled thread of evidence that spans seas and traverses continents, connected to one of the most baffling mysteries in modern medical science. Through shocking twists and turns, all trails lead back to a powerful adversary with a sadistic agenda and who --- in a cruel irony --- ultimately sees in Pendergast the ideal subject for their malevolent research.
Old Bones
Young curator Nora Kelly is approached by historian Clive Benton with a once-in-a-lifetime proposal: to lead a team in search of the so-called "Lost Camp" of the tragic Donner Party. This was a group of pioneers who became snow-bound in the California mountains in 1847, their fate unknown until the first skeletonized survivors stumbled out of the wilderness, raving about starvation, murder --- and cannibalism. Benton tells Kelly he has come across an amazing find: the long-sought diary of one of the victims, which has an enigmatic description of the Lost Camp. Nora agrees to lead an expedition to locate and excavate it. But as they uncover old bones, they expose the real truth of what happened, one that is far more shocking and bizarre than mere cannibalism.
Verses for the Dead: A Pendergast Novel
A. X. L. Pendergast and his new colleague, junior agent Coldmoon, are assigned to investigate a rash of killings in Miami Beach, where a bloodthirsty psychopath is cutting out the hearts of his victims and leaving them with cryptic handwritten letters at local gravestones. The graves are unconnected save in one bizarre way: all belong to women who committed suicide. But the seeming lack of connection between the old suicides and the new murders is soon the least of Pendergast's worries. Because as he digs deeper, he realizes that the brutal new crimes may be just the tip of the iceberg: a conspiracy of death that reaches back decades.
The Pharaoh Key
Gideon Crew --- brilliant scientist, master thief, intrepid adventurer --- is shocked when his former employer, Eli Glinn, vanishes without a trace, and Glinn's high-tech lab Effective Engineering Solutions shuts down seemingly overnight. Fresh off a diagnosis that gives him only months to live, Crew is contacted by one of his former coworkers at EES, Manuel Garza, who has a bead on one final treasure hinted at in EES's final case, the long-awaited translation of a centuries-old stone tablet of a previously undiscovered civilization: The Phaistos Disc. What lies at the end of the trail will either save Gideon's life or bring it to a sudden, shocking close.
City of Endless Night: A Pendergast Novel
It begins as a manhunt for Grace Ozmian, the missing daughter of a wealthy tech billionaire. At first, the NYPD assumes that Grace has simply sped off on another wild adventure. But the case becomes something altogether different when the young woman's body is discovered, the head nowhere to be found. Lieutenant CDS Vincent D'Agosta quickly takes the lead. He knows his investigation will attract fierce scrutiny, so D'Agosta is delighted when FBI Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast shows up at the crime scene also assigned to the case. But neither are prepared for what lies ahead, as it quickly becomes clear that a diabolical presence is haunting the greater metropolitan area.
The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story
by Douglas Preston - Adventure, History, Nonfiction
Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God --- but then committed suicide without revealing its location. Three quarters of a century later, Douglas Preston joined a team of scientists on a flight that revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization. But it wasn't until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had contracted a horrifying, sometimes lethal --- and incurable --- disease.
The Obsidian Chamber
After a harrowing, otherworldly confrontation on the shores of Exmouth, Massachusetts, Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast is missing, presumed dead. Sick with grief, Pendergast's ward, Constance, retreats to her chambers beneath the family mansion at 891 Riverside Drive --- only to be taken captive by a shadowy figure from the past. Proctor, Pendergast's longtime bodyguard, springs to action, chasing Constance's kidnapper through cities, across oceans, and into wastelands unknown. And by the time Proctor discovers the truth, a terrifying engine has stirred --- and it may already be too late.
Beyond the Ice Limit: A Gideon Crew Novel
Five years ago, the mysterious and inscrutable head of Effective Engineering Solutions, Eli Glinn, led a mission to recover a gigantic meteorite from a remote island off the coast of South America. The mission ended in disaster when their ship foundered in a vicious storm and broke apart, sinking to the ocean floor. The tragedy revealed something truly terrifying: the meteorite they tried to retrieve was not simply a rock. Instead, it was a complex organism from the deep reaches of space. That organism has now implanted itself in the sea bed two miles below the surface --- and it's growing. As Gideon Crew and his colleagues soon discover, the "meteorite" has a mind of its own and has no intention of going quietly.
Crimson Shore: A Pendergast Novel
Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast, together with his ward Constance Greene, travels to the quaint seaside village of Exmouth, Massachusetts, to investigate the theft of a priceless wine collection. But inside the wine cellar, they find something considerably more disturbing: a bricked-up niche that once held a crumbling skeleton. Pendergast and Constance soon learn that Exmouth is a town with a very dark and troubled history, and this skeleton may be only the first hint of an ancient transgression, kept secret all these years. But they will discover that the sins of the past are still very much alive.
Blue Labyrinth
A long-buried family secret resurfaces when one of Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast's most feared enemies shows up on his doorstep as a murdered corpse with a piece of turquoise lodged in the stomach. The gem leads Pendergast to an abandoned mine on the shore of California's desolate Salton Sea. But Pendergast learns there is more at work than a ghastly episode of family history: he is soon stalked by a killer bent on vengeance over an ancient transgression.
The Lost Island: A Gideon Crew Novel
by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child - Adventure, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller
Gideon Crew is living on borrowed time. When his mysterious employer gives him an eyebrow-raising mission, he has no reason to refuse. His task: steal a page from the priceless Book of Kells. Gideon accomplishes the impossible --- only to learn that hidden beneath the gorgeously illuminated image is a treasure map dating back to the time of the ancient Greeks. The treasure to which it leads is no ordinary fortune. It is something far more precious: an amazing discovery that could perhaps even save Gideon's life.
The Kraken Project
by Douglas Preston - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller
NASA is building a probe to be splashed down in the Kraken Mare, the largest sea on Saturn's great moon, Titan. It is one of the most promising habitats for extraterrestrial life in the solar system, but the surface is unpredictable and dangerous, requiring the probe to contain artificial intelligence software. To this end, Melissa Shepherd, a brilliant programmer, has developed "Dorothy," a powerful, self-modifying AI whose true potential is both revolutionary and terrifying. When miscalculations lead to a catastrophe during testing, Dorothy flees into the Internet.
White Fire
Special Agent Pendergast's arrival at an exclusive Colorado ski resort to rescue his protégée, Corrie Swanson, from serious trouble with the law coincides with the first attack of a murderous arsonist who begins burning down mansions with the families locked inside. Eventually, he uncovers a mysterious connection between several miners who were killed 150 years earlier and a fabled, long-lost Sherlock Holmes story --- one that might just offer the key to the modern-day killings as well.
Two Graves
For 12 years, he believed she died in an accident. Then, he was told she'd been murdered. Now, FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast discovers that his beloved wife Helen is alive. But their reunion is cut short when Helen is brazenly abducted before his eyes. Pendergast is forced to embark on a furious cross-country chase to rescue --- but what he finds is the origin of a nefarious international plot that he is unwittingly at the heart of.
Gideon's Corpse
Sifting through the evidence, authorities determine that in 10 days, a major American city will be vaporized by a terrorist attack. And Gideon Crew, tracking the mysterious terrorist cell, learns the end may be something far worse than mere Armageddon.
Cold Vengeance
by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child - Fiction, Thriller
A hunting trip for Pendergast and his brother-in-law, Judson Esterhazy, turns into a violent clash, in which Pendergast is left for dead.
Gideon's Sword
Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child - Fiction, Thriller
Ever since his late mother begged him to avenge his father's murder, Gideon Crew has been on a mission. Now, he is being closely observed --- and he may have an opportunity to use his skills for more than just this murder…
by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi
Cemetery Dance
by Douglas Preston - Fiction, Thriller
In BLASPHEMY, Alexie unites fifteen new stories in one sweeping anthology. The anthology includes some of his most esteemed tales, including "What You Pawn I Will Redeem," "This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona," "The Toughest Indian in the World," and "War Dances." Alexie's new stories --- about donkey basketball leagues, lethal wind turbines, the reservation, marriage, and all species of contemporary American warriors --- are fresh and quintessential.
The Wheel of Darkness
The Book of the Dead
Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child - Fiction, Thriller
Tyrannosaur Canyon
Dance Of Death
The Codex
The Cabinet of Curiosities
by Douglas Preston - Fiction, Suspense
The Ice Limit
Still Life With Crows
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