The Traveller: a thriller so different and powerful it will change the way you look at the world: 01 (The Fourth Realm Trilogy, 1) - Softcover

Twelve Hawks, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0552152692 ISBN 13: 9780552152693

Publisher: Corgi, 2006

Synopsis

WHAT LIES AHEAD IS ALREADY HERE...

America is a difficult place to live below the surface. But Gabriel and Michael Corrigan are trying to do just that. Since childhood, the brothers have been shaped by the stories that their father has told them about the world in which they live. After his mysterious disappearance, they have been living 'off the grid' - that is, invisible to the intrusive surveillance networks that monitor our modern lives.

But no-one is as invisible as they would like to believe. Nathan Boone, a mercenary, has been tasked to hunt down the brothers. The only person who stands between them and certain death is Maya, a tough young woman playing at leading a normal life. But her background is anything but normal. She has been trained to fight and survive at whatever cost. When she is summoned to protect the brothers, she must leave everything behind if she is to succeed...

About this title

Review:

Sometimes--not very often--a debut novel comes along which marks out a new writer as a consummate craftsman, seemingly fully formed with that first book. The Traveller is such a book; the mysterious John Twelve Hawks is such a writer (his publishers give no information about him, except that he ‘lives off the grid’).

The first thing that strikes the reader about this unusual novel is its ambitious panoply, which is as exuberantly international as one could wish, moving through a vividly realised Prague, London and Los Angeles. His characters are disparate but characterised with great individuality, such as the brothers Gabriel and Michael Corrigan, who have been brought up in Los Angeles under the mesmerising spell of their fey father; he appears to possess certain unnatural powers. After he dies a violent death, the brothers vanish off the grid of society, living in a clandestine underworld. Meanwhile, in London, Maya is a self-possessed young woman whose everyday life conceals a strange secret: she is the last of a dynasty whose responsibility is to protect those in the human race who are differently gifted. She is called to Prague by her sick father, and learns about Gabriel and Michael, whose lives are now in serious danger. In California, a desperate race against time begins: who will track down the brothers first--the protective Maya or the murderous Boone?

Readers tired of the parochial thriller that has held sway in Britain for so long will embrace this intoxicating (if outrageously unlikely) novel with open arms. True, a certain suspension of disbelief is required, but Twelve Hawks is the kind of writer who is able to persuade even the most sceptical among us. A remarkable debut.
--Barry Forshaw

Review:

"'The pace is fast, the characters intriguing and memorable, the evil dark and palpable, and the genre-bending between fantasty and thriller seamless...He could be a force to reckon with'" (Kirkus Reviews)

"'Twelve Hawks' much anticipated novel is powerful, mainstream fiction built on a foundation of cutting-edge technology laced with fantasy and the chilling specter of an all-too-possible social and political reality'" (Publishers Weekly)

"The book they say is the new Da Vinci Code. Take some Orwellian undertones, add a dash of Philip Pullman and sprinkle with a few lines of Dan Brown" (Metro)

"Compelling...Picture The Matrix crossed with William Gibson and you'll have a sense of The Traveller" (Newsday)

"A cyber 1984...Page-turningly swift, with a cliffhanger ending" (New York Times)

About this edition

• Publisher: Corgi
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0552152692
• ISBN 13: 9780552152693
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 608