Gideon Book

Thriller readers are a difficult group to seduce: they've read all the key titles (and their numerous progeny) and are quick to recognise over-familiar material. So when a new premise appears, it's a cause for celebration. Andrews' publishers must have been pleased to receive this manuscript, for this is a unique and interesting plot which is handled in prose possessing a frictionless energy. When a writer, Carl Granville, is hired by a mysterious source to synthesise an old diary, articles and letters into fiction, he is bemused by the quarter of a million dollars he will be paid for this task. Needless to say, that price tag has a reason: the pseudonymous Gideon's book on which he is working has more than bestseller potential--it articulates a profound evil and a long disguised cover-up by a clandestine and powerful figure. And when people near to Carl begin to die, his apartment is ransacked and his computer stolen, he finds himself both suspected by the authorities and in danger from nameless sources. There are echoes of Grisham here, but when Andrews throws off his influences, he shows that he can really let rip with a fresh and invigorating piece, garnished with some notably nasty villains. --Barry ForshawRead More