Douglas Preston

A five-hundred-year-old legend. An ancient curse. A stunning medical mystery. And a pioneering journey into the unknown heart of the world's densest jungle. Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die. 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, bestselling author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization. Venturing into this raw, treacherous, but breathtakingly beautiful wilderness to confirm the discovery, Preston and the team battled torrential rains, quickmud, disease-carrying insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. But it wasn't until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had contracted in the ruins a horrifying, sometimes lethal-and incurable-disease. Suspenseful and shocking, filled with colorful history, hair-raising adventure, and dramatic twists of fortune, THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD is the absolutely true, eyewitness account of one of the great discoveries of the twenty-first century.

A True Story

The Lost City of the Monkey God

Lincoln Child

The first in the groundbreaking Nora Kelly series from #1 bestselling authors Preston & Child blends the legend of the Donner party with a riveting suspense tale, taking the dynamic duo's work to new heights.

Nora Kelly, a young but successful curator with a series of important excavations already under her belt, is approached by the handsome Historian, Clive Benton, to lead an expedition unlike any other. Clive tells his story--one involving the ill-fated Donner Party, who became permanently lodged in the American consciousness in the winter of 1847, when the first skeletonized survivors of the party stumbled out of the California mountains, replete with tales of courage, resourcefulness, bad luck, murder, barbarism--and, finally, starvation and cannibalism.

Captivated by the Donner Party, Nora agrees and they venture into the Sierra Nevada in search of the camp. Quickly, they learn that the discovery of the missing starvation camp is just the tip of the iceberg--and that the real truth behind those long-dead pioneers is not only far more complex and surprising than they could have imagined...but it is one that puts them both in mortal danger from a very real, present-day threat in which the search for the lost party, and its fabled fortune in gold, are merely means to a horrifying end.

Old Bones (Nora Kelly #1)

In the nonfiction tradition of John Berendt and Erik Larson, the author of the #1 NYT bestseller The Lost City of the Monkey God presents a gripping account of crime and punishment in the lush hills surrounding Florence as he seeks to uncover one of the most infamous figures in Italian history. 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.

The Monster of Florence

Hidden deep beneath Manhattan lies a warren of tunnels, sewers, and galleries, mostly forgotten by those who walk the streets above. There lies the ultimate secret of the Museum Beast. When two grotesquely deformed skeletons are found deep in the mud off the Manhattan shoreline, museum curator Margo Green is called in to aid the investigation. Margo must once again team up with police lieutenant D'Agosta and FBI agent Pendergast, as well as the brilliant Dr. Frock, to try and solve the puzzle. The trail soon leads deep underground, where they will face the awakening of a slumbering nightmare. Special lower priced edition available for a limited time.

Reliquary

The mysterious disappearance of treasure hunter and adventurer Maxwell Broadbent--along with that of his riches--sends his three sons on a search for their father, who has hidden himself and his treasures, in order to claim their inheritance, which also includes an ancient Mayan codex containing revolutionary pharmacological secrets that someone will do anything to find. Reprint.

The Codex

Cabinet of Dr. Leng

Wyman Ford is tapped for a secret expedition to Cambodia... to locate the source of strangely beautiful gemstones that do not appear to be of this world. A brilliant meteor lights up the Maine coast... and two young women borrow a boat and set out for a distant island to find the impact crater. A scientist at the National Propulsion Facility discovers an inexplicable source of gamma rays in the outer Solar System. He is found decapitated, the data missing. High resolution NASA images reveal an unnatural feature hidden in the depths of a crater on Mars... and it appears to have been activated. Sixty hours and counting.

Impact

Agent Pendergast faces his most unexpected challenge yet when bloodless bodies begin to appear in Savannah, GA, in this next installment of the #1 NYT bestselling series. A legendary heist: On the evening of November 24, 1971, D. B. Cooper hijacked Flight 305 -- Portland to Seattle -- with a fake bomb, collected a ransom of $200,000, and parachuted into the night, never to be seen again... Perhaps. A brutal crime steeped in malevolence: Fifty years later, Agent Pendergast takes on a bizarre and gruesome case: in the ghost-haunted city of Savannah, Georgia, bodies are found completely drained of blood--sowing panic and reviving the infamous legend of the Savannah Vampire. A case like no other in Pendergast's career: Through twists and turns, Pendergast and his partner, Agent Coldmoon, race to understand how these murders are connected to the most mystifying hijacking in American history. Together, they discover not just the killer-but an unearthly evil beyond all reckoning.

Bloodless

A stunning new archaeological thriller by the New York Times bestselling co-author of Brimstone and Relic. A moon rock missing for thirty years... Five buckets of blood-soaked sand found in a New Mexico canyon... A scientist with ambition enough to kill... A monk who will redeem the world... A dark agency with a deadly mission... The greatest scientific discovery of all time... What fire bolt from the galactic dark shattered the Earth eons ago, and now hides in that remote cleft in the southwest U.S. known as Tyrannosaur Canyon? Tyrannosaur Canyon is a stunning novel from acclaimed bestselling author Douglas Preston, hailed by Publishers Weekly as "better than Crichton."

Tyrannosaur Canyon

"At age 12, Gideon Crew witnessed the brutal murder of his father. More than 20 years later, Gideon gets his revenge. But then a mysterious witness steps forward to confront Gideon with his crime--and offer him the chance of a lifetime"--Provided by publisher.

Gideon's Sword

After a shoot-out leaves a senior agent gravely wounded, FBI rookie Corrie Swanson finds herself under investigation. Her supervisor assures her she's not to blame and the black mark on her record will be cleared in short order. But Corrie finds she cannot shake off an overwhelming feeling of guilt.

As a distraction, she takes on a new case involving a fifty-year-old mummified corpse discovered in a hidden enclave at High Lonesome, a long-abandoned New Mexico ghost town. Quickly out of her depth, she realizes she needs the help of her old enemy, archaeologist Nora Kelly. The two women soon uncover a startling truth: the deceased was poisoned, and died clutching a priceless artifact.

Can Corrie and Nora solve the mystery of the scorpion's tail? Or will they – like others before them – die in the attempt?

The Scorpion's Tail (Nora Kelly #2)

Forced to leave her post at the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute, Nora Kelly is left without a job and without any prospects. So when billionaire Lucas Tappan invites her to lead his excavation of the infamous Roswell landing site, she has no choice but to make a decision that could destroy her reputation.

Armed with a healthy dose of scepticism, Nora reluctantly agrees to visit. When the preliminary scans of the area reveal a suspected Native American burial site, Nora takes a closer look.

But this is no indigenous burial site. It's a crime scene, and a recent one at that. Nora uncovers two dead bodies, one with a bullet hole in its skull, acid used to conceal the identities. Dead bodies mean this has become a case for the FBI, and Nora knows just the person to investigate – Special Agent Corrie Swanson.

As Corrie and Nora dig deeper into the mystery, they will uncover more questions than answers. And the truth they seek will be even stranger than the conspiracy it hides behind...

Diablo Mesa (Nora Kelly #3)

A CIA operative is sent to a remote Arizona mountain with a group of scientists to turn on the world's biggest supercollider. His mission: to discover a secret that will either destroy the world ... or save it.

Blasphemy

Gideon Crew--brilliant scientist, master thief--is living on borrowed time. When his mysterious employer, Eli Glinn, gives him an eyebrow-raising mission, he has no reason to refuse. Gideon's task: steal a page from the priceless Book of Kells, now on display in New York City and protected by unbreakable security. Accomplishing the impossible, Gideon steals the parchment--only to learn that hidden beneath the gorgeously illuminated image is a treasure map dating back to the time of the ancient Greeks. As they ponder the strange map, they realize that the treasure it leads to is no ordinary fortune. It is something far more precious: an amazing discovery that could perhaps even save Gideon's life. Together with his new partner, Amy, Gideon follows a trail of cryptic clues to an unknown island in a remote corner of the Caribbean Sea. There, off the hostile and desolate Mosquito Coast, the pair realize the extraordinary treasure they are hunting conceals an even greater shock-a revelation so profound that it may benefit the entire human race . . . if Gideon and Amy can survive.

A Gideon Crew Novel

The Lost Island

Before he can return to New York from Miami, Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast is called to investigate something very strange that has happened on the west coast of Florida. Dozens of human feet, identically clad in blue have washed up on beaches. All exhibit unmistakeable signs of violence. Beyond that, nothing is known about the feet, except that they are fresh and haven't been in the water long. Pendergast reluctantly makes his way to the barrier islands off South Florida to investigate a case he believes to be outside his area of expertise and his interest. Once there, he finds the case both disturbing and intriguing, and is drawn into the mystery almost against his will. A preliminary pathology report indicates the feet were chopped, torn, or even wrenched from their bodies in the crudest of ways. Over the next few days, still more continue to wash in, until the number tops one hundred. Soon the case begins to take a most surprising and complex turn, and Pendergast finds it necessary to call in Special Agent Armstrong Coldmoon for a risky and very specific undercover assignment. And when, at last, the true origin of this awful gift from the sea becomes clear, the former partners are forced to confront an enemy, and a horror, more powerful and deadly than any they have faced before.

Crooked River

Mario Spezi

And Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder

Lost Tomb

In this #1 New York Times bestseller, FBI Agent Pendergast reluctantly teams up with a new partner to investigate a rash of Miami Beach murders . . . only to uncover a deadly conspiracy that spans decades. After an overhaul of leadership at the FBI's New York field office, A. X. L. Pendergast is abruptly forced to accept an unthinkable condition of continued employment: the famously rogue agent must now work with a partner. 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 the brutal new crimes may be just the tip of the iceberg: a conspiracy of death that reaches back decades.

Verses for the Dead

The dramatic second novel in a three-book story arc starring enigmatic FBI Agent Pendergast on his search for his long-lost wife, Helen. Devastated by the discovery that his wife, Helen, was murdered, Special Agent Pendergast must have retribution. But revenge is not simple. As he stalks his wife's betrayers - a chase that takes him from the wild moors of Scotland to the bustling streets of New York City and the darkest bayous of Louisiana - he is also forced to dig further into Helen's past. And he is stunned to learn that Helen may have been a collaborator in her own murder. Peeling back the layers of deception, Pendergast realizes that the conspiracy is deeper, goes back generations, and is more monstrous than he could have ever imagined - and everything he's believed, everything he's trusted, everything he's understood . . . may be a horrific lie.

An Agent Pendergast Novel

Cold Vengeance

Lisa Gardner

James Rollins

Heather Graham

Linda Fairstein

John Sandford

Lee Child

Peter James

R. L. Stine

Ian Rankin

Linwood Barclay

Michael Connelly

Jeffery Deaver

Raymond Khoury

John Lescroart

Dennis Lehane

Steve Berry

M. J. Rose

F. Paul Wilson

T. Jefferson Parker

Steve Martini

Joseph Finder

An instant New York Times and USA TODAY bestseller and “a thriller reader’s ultimate fantasy” (Booklist), this one-of-a-kind anthology pulls together the most beloved characters from the best and most popular thriller series today. Worlds collide! In an unprecedented collaboration, twenty-three of the world’s bestselling and critically acclaimed thriller writers pair their series characters in an eleven-story anthology curated by the International Thriller Writers (ITW). The stories in FaceOff feature: -Patrick Kenzie vs. Harry Bosch in “Red Eye,” by Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly -John Rebus vs. Roy Grace in “In the Nick of Time,” by Ian Rankin and Peter James -Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy vs. Aloysius Pendergast in “Gaslighted,” by R.L. Stine, Douglas Preston, and Lincoln Child -Malachai Samuels vs. D.D. Warren in “The Laughing Buddha,” by M.J. Rose and Lisa Gardner -Paul Madriani vs. Alexandra Cooper in “Surfing the Panther,” by Steve Martini and Linda Fairstein -Lincoln Rhyme vs. Lucas Davenport in “Rhymes With Prey,” by Jeffery Deaver and John Sandford -Michael Quinn vs. Repairman Jack in “Infernal Night,” by Heather Graham and F. Paul Wilson -Sean Reilly vs. Glen Garber in “Pit Stop,” by Raymond Khoury and Linwood Barclay -Wyatt Hunt vs. Joe Trona in “Silent Hunt,” by John Lescroart and T. Jefferson Parker -Cotton Malone vs. Gray Pierce in “The Devil’s Bones,” by Steve Berry and James Rollins -Jack Reacher vs. Nick Heller in “Good and Valuable Consideration,” by Lee Child and Joseph Finder So sit back and prepare for a rollicking ride as your favorite characters go head-to-head with some worthy opponents in FaceOff—it’s a thrill-a-minute read.

Douglas Preston

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