Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Audiobook: Hachette Audio
Date of publication: January 2012
A top nuclear scientist goes mad and takes an innocent family hostage at gunpoint, killing one and causing a massive standoff.
A plume of radiation above New York City leads to a warehouse where, it seems, a powerful nuclear bomb was assembled just hours before.
Sifting through the evidence, authorities determine that the unthinkable is about to happen: in ten days, a major American city will be vaporized by a terrorist attack.
Ten days. And Gideon Crew, tracking the mysterious terrorist cell from the suburbs of New York to the mountains of New Mexico, learns the end may be something worse--far worse--than mere Armageddon.
Gideon's Corpse is the second in the Gideon Crew series by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. Autumn and I both reviewed the first one, Gideon's Sword, last year. The second book in a series can always be iffy for me, especially if I really liked the first one. While I didn't love Gideon's Corpse, I still thought it was an enjoyable book.
This one picks up right where the first one left off. Gideon is asked to try to talk a former colleague out of a hostage situation. When that goes badly, he finds himself in the middle of a terrorist plot with only 10 days to stop it. The mystery of who is trying to start a war on American soil was pretty good. With a couple of possibilities on the table, I wasn't truly sure who was behind it. There were also a few twists that I liked. Gideon's Corpse also has some great action scenes that helped to build the tension.
Gideon is pretty much the same in this book. He is still good looking, a great liar and master of disguise. The thing that appeals to me most about Gideon is that he isn't the perfect alpha male. He just seems real and is a pretty nice guy. He has flaws and messes up all the time. He even has an unknown amount of time left to live. The blockage in his brain could burst at any time. What I would love to see is for him to find a girlfriend. So far, his track record hasn't been that great. One thing that did bother be about the book is that the "romance" in the book felt forced and probably could have been left out.
I listened to the audio and I enjoyed the narrator. As in the first book, this one ends with a clue as to the next of Gideon's adventures. I look forward to seeing what trouble he can get into next!
Lincoln Child's latest book, The Third Gate, is a terrific read and filled with enough suspense, mystery, and drama to compete with the best of the 1940's film noire movies. In fact, the book felt like an old black and white movie. Mixing hard science, history, archaeology, and the occult The Third Gate is a page turner and sure to please a wide audience.
ReplyDeleteThe story largely takes place in the Sudd, a swampy area of the upper Nile at a research facility looking for the grave of Egypt's first pharaoh. Jeremy Logan, a history professor, is recruited by the expedition's organizer and underwriter, Porter Stone. However, Logan's training as a historian is not the expertise Stone is after. In fact, Logan is what he terms an "enigmalogist". Logan studies paranormal events and near death experiences (NDE). Why is this particular specialty needed on an archaeological expedition in the middle of a swamp in the middle of the desert? Well, that's why you might want to read the book.