Gideon - Softcover

Andrews, Russell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345434781 ISBN 13: 9780345434784

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2000

Synopsis

Gideon. An identity shrouded in mystery - the anonymous source who holds the key to an explosive secret. In a clandestine meeting, writer Carl Granville is hired to take the pages of an old diary, articles, letters, documents in which all proper names and locations have been blacked out - and turn them into compelling fiction. He will be paid a quarter of a million dollars. But he can never tell a soul.

As he is fed information and his work progresses, Granville begins to realize that Gideon's book is more than just a potential bestseller. It is a revelation of chilling evil and a decades-long cover-up by someone with far-reaching power. He starts to have second thoughts. How will his book be used? Whose lives will be shattered? What is the truth behind the story - and who is the true storyteller?

Then someone close to Granville is bludgeoned to death. Another is savagely murdered. His apartment is ransacked, his computer destroyed, all his records stolen. Suspicion falls on Granville. He tries to explain the shadowy assignment. No one believes him. He has no proof, no alibis...

About this title

Review:

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 Forshaw

Review:

"THE EFFECT IS A BIT LIKE ROLLING DOWN A GRASSY HILL . . . YOU PICK UP SERIOUS SPEED. . . . Writer Carl Granville - down on his luck personally and professionally - is approached one day by a hotshot publisher who says she'll pay him a startling amount of money to turn a top secret diary into a novel. Gift from God or devilish trap? . . . The conspiracy he gets tangled in plays on some seriously topical fears."
-Entertainment Weekly

"THE BOOK'S GOT EVERYTHING A BIG ADVENTURE THRILLER SHOULD - a potentially world-shaking secret, nearly invincible villains, vulnerable protagonists on the run, romance, [and] betrayal. . . . What takes it a step beyond . . . are the seriousness of its message and the playfulness with which it bites the hand that publishes it."
-Los Angeles Times

"FRANTIC . . . NOTHING IS EVER AS IT SEEMS."
-The Boston Globe

"THIS ONE WILL KEEP YOU GUESSING UNTIL THE END."
-Houston Chronicle

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0345434781
• ISBN 13: 9780345434784
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 480