Borderlands 2

When FBI Special Agent Pendergast discovers a murder in the attic of a Long Island estate, a scorched claw print leads him down a dark trail of unspeakable terror. A body is found in the attic of a fabulous Long Island estate.There is a claw print scorched into the wall, and the stench of sulfur chokes the air.When FBI Special Agent Pendergast investigates the gruesome crime, he discovers that thirty years ago four men conjured something unspeakable.Has the devil come to claim his due?Some things can't be undone.

Authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child blew readers away with their 1995 debut, Relic, which "Twister" producer Gale Anne Hurd brought to the silver screen several summers ago. Preston, who many may recognize as the brother of Hot Zone author Richard Preston, and Child, an acclaimed editor and horror fiction anthologist before taking up the pen himself, have become the hottest writing team working today; their knack for producing hair-raising, vastly original storylines and smooth, searing prose is without a doubt second to none. Their new novel, Thunderhead — the sinister tale of an ill-fated team searching for a lost city of gold in southern Utah — is a titan of a summer read. One of Preston and Child's biggest fans, action/adventure star Jack Du Brul, remarks on Thunderhead below.

Publishers Weekly

The adventure is marginally higher than the suspense in Preston and Child's sturdy new tale of scientific derring-do, concerning a search for Quivira, the legendary Anasazi Indian City of Gold. With four high-concept thrillers behind them, from 1995's Relic to last year's Riptide, the authors know what buttons to push and levers to yank — perhaps too well. The novel has a clockwork feel, from its first tick — the spooky stalking of archeologist Nora Kelly on an isolated New Mexican ranch — to its last tock. Playing it safe, Preston and Child take no missteps as Nora finds an old letter from her long-missing father with clues to Quivira's location; leads an expedition of central-casting types (a leathery old cowboy, a beautiful female photographer, the jokey journalist who figured in Relic and Reliquary, etc.); after much difficulty, discovers Quivira, which is revealed as a repository of ancient evil; and encounters death by way of the Native American witches who threatened her at the novel's start. It's all predictable but rarely dull. The authors display deep affection for the pulp they're recycling, talent for exciting set pieces — a hazardous ascent along a ridge toward Quivira and the flash-flooding of the canyon harboring the city are showcases of action writing — and, always their ace, the ability to infuse every aspect of their story with authentic techno-scientific lore. This is a novel in which the archeological niceties of ancient black-on-yellow micaceous pottery are as important to plot as the caliber of the gun the heroine wields. Fans of the authors' similarly inspired, and similarly metronomic, scientific textbooks-cum-thrillers should find this one much to their taste. Simultaneous audio.
Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

For generations, treasure hunters have tried to unlock the deadly puzzle known as the Water Pit, a labyrinth at the heart of a small island off the coast of Maine. Reputed to be the hiding place of pirate treasure, the Water Pit destroys all who venture into it. Is the Water Pit a gateway to limitless treasure -- or to hell itself?

Publishers Weekly

The authors' first and bestselling thriller, The Relic, hit the lists in part for its clever exploitation of an extraordinary settingthe American Museum of Natural History. Just so, their fourth novel (after Reliquary) makes sprightly use of Nova Scotia's Oak Island and its notorious Money Pithere transplanted to offshore Maine as the Water Pit on Ragged Island. The novel opens with a brisk recap of often fatal efforts over the past 200 years to recover a fabled treasurenow worth $2 billion and including a mysterious relic, St. Michael's Swordhidden by English pirate Edward Ockham in the Water Pit. The difficulty is that the Pit, nearly 200 feet deep, was designed to flood and to kill through booby traps anyone trying to broach the treasure. Into this nifty setup steps Martin Hatch, returning to Ragged Island 25 years after his brother and father died in the Pit. Hatch is back as part of a massive expedition attempting a high-tech assault on the Pit. Brash melodrama ensues as expedition members suffer various gory accidents and as Hatch realizes that the Sword possesses a quality that may kill the entire expedition. The novel suffers from a diffusion of villainsthe authors variously demonize the Pit, the Pit's designer, the crazed expedition leader and the Swordand from workaday prose and assembly-line characters (a computer nerd, a sexy French archeologist, a righteous minister). Machine-gun pacing, startling plot twists and smart use of legend, scientific lore (including cyptanalysis) and the evocative setting carry the day, however, resulting in an exciting boys' adventure tale for adults that's bound to be one of most popular of the summer reads. Film rights optioned by Arnold Kopelson; foreign rights sold in eight countries; simultaneous Time Warner audio. (July) FYI: The mystery of Oak Island and its Money Pit has been detailed in several books (e.g., D'arcy O'Conner's The Money Pit, 1978). The Pit, target over the past two centuries of numerous failed expeditions costing millions of dollars and six lives, is variously rumored to contain Captain Kidd's treasure, Incan gold and even the Holy Grail.

The new adventure-packed thriller by the New York Times bestselling authors of Riptide, The Relic, and The Ice Limit.

THE CABINET OF CURIOSITIES, like The Relic, takes place in and around New York's Museum of Natural History.

Publishers Weekly

In seven bestselling novels (from Relic to The Ice Limit), Preston and Child have delivered a body of science-based thrillers that for high excitement and robust scientific imaginings rival those of Michael Crichton. Their eighth outing is another richly entertaining tale, about the hunt for a seemingly immortal serial killer at work in New York City. Preston and Child revive characters and settings from earlier novels, often a red flag that authorial imagination is tiring; but in this case, all comes together with zing. There's FBI Special Agent Pendergast (from Relic), pale, refined and possessed of a Holmes-like brain; dogged New York Times reporter William Smithback Jr. and his fiery erstwhile girlfriend, Nora Kelly of the New York (read American, where Preston used to work) Museum of Natural History (both characters from Thunderhead with the museum the setting for Relic). The action begins when groundbreaking for an apartment tower in downtown Manhattan reveals a charnel house of murder victims from the late 19th century. Enter Pendergast, who for unexplained reasons taps Kelly to study the remains before the site is stripped by the building's developer, a Donald Trump-type who, with the mayor's backing, will accept no construction delays. As Kelly calls on Smithback for investigative help, the city is struck by killings that duplicate the earlier murders, with the victims' spinal cords ripped away and clues pointing to a 19th-century scientist who sought the secret of immortality. Featuring fabulous locales, colorful characters, pointed riffs on city and museum politics, cool forensic and paleontological speculation and several gripping set pieces including an extended white-knuckle climax, this a great beach novel, at times gruesome, always fun: Preston-Child at the top of their game. (June 3) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Art critic Jeremy Grove is found dead, his face frozen in a mask of terror. His body temperature is grotesquely high; he is discovered in a room barricaded from the inside; the smell of brimstone is everywhere ... and the unmistakable imprint of a claw is burned into the wall. As more bodies are discovered--their only connection the bizarre but identical manner of death--the world begins to wonder if the Devil has, is fact, come to collect his due. Teaming with Police Officer Vincent D'Agosta, Agent Pendergast is determined to solve this case that appears to defy all logic. Their investigation takes them from the luxury estates of Long Island to the crumbling, legend-shrouded castles of the Italian countryside, where Pendergast faces the most treacherous and dangerous adversary of his career In downtown Manhattan, a gruesome discovery has just been made-an underground charnel house containing the bones of dozens of murder victims. Research reveals that a serial killer was at work in New York's notorious Five Points neighborhood in the 1880s, bent on prolonging his lifespan by any means. When a newspaper story on the old murders appears to ignite a new series of horrifyingly similar killings, panic overtakes New York City. Now, FBI agent Pendergast, journalist Bill Smithback, and archaeologist Nora Kelly join forces to protect themselves from a vicious killer...before they become the next victims. Nora Kelly, a young archaeologist in Santa Fe, receives a letter written sixteen years ago, yet mysteriously mailed only recently. In it her father, long believed dead, hints at a fantastic discovery that will make him famous and rich---the lost city of an ancient civilization that suddenly vanished a thousand years ago. Now Nora is leading an expedition into a harsh, remote corner of Utah's canyon country. Searching for her father and his glory, Nora begins to unravel the greatest riddle of American archeology. but what she unearths will be the newest of horrors... Unable to resist a case that defies all but supernatural logic, Pendergast reunites with police officers Vincent D'Agosta (Relic) and Laura Hayward (Reliquary) to search for a more earthly explanation. But their investigation soon takes them from the luxury estates of Long Island and penthouses of New York City to the crumbling, legend-shrouded castles of the Italian countryside, where thirty years ago four men conjured up something unspeakable When a series of murders strikes small-town Kansas, FBI Special Agent Pendergast must track down a killer or a curse -- either way, no one is safe. A small Kansas town has turned into a killing ground.Is it a serial killer, a man with the need to destroy?Or is it a darker force, a curse upon the land?Amid golden cornfields, FBI Special Agent Pendergast discovers evil in the blood of America's heartland.No one is safe. Days before a massive exhibition at the New York Museum of Natural History, visitors are being murdered. Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human. The museum's directors decide to go ahead with the bash in spite of the murders. Now museum researcher Margo Green must find out who or what is doing the killing. Does she have time to stop a massacre? A body is found in the attic of a fabulous Long Island estate. There is a hoofprint scorched into the floor, and the stench of sulfur chokes the air. When FBI Special Agent Pendergast investigates the gruesome crime, he discovers that thirty years ago four men conjured something unspeakable. Has the devil come to claim his due? "In an ancient tunnel underneath New York City a charnel house is discovered. Inside are thirty-six bodies, all murdered and mutilated more than a century ago. While FBI agent Pendergast investigates the old crimes, identical killings start to terrorize the city. The nightmare has begun. Again." -- P. [4] of cover The bestselling authors of "The Relic" deliver a "highly readable tale of adventure and long-ago crimes" ("Dallas Morning News"). An archeologist goes in search of the fabled Lost City of Gold, an expedition her father had begun 16 years earlier before he mysteriously vanished in southeast Utah. A gruesome discovery has just been made in Manhattan - a cache of the bones of dozens of murder victims. Evidently a serial killer operated in New York's notorious Five Points neighbourhood in the 1880s. Then a news story on the old murders appears to ignite a fresh series of similar killings. A small Kansas town has turned into a killing ground. Is it a serial killer, a man with the need to destroy? Or is it a darker force, a curse upon the land? Amid golden cornfields, FBI Special Agent Pendergast discovers evil in the blood of America's heartland. Sixteen years after her father's mysterious disappearance, archaeologist Nora Kelly follows in his footsteps, guided by an enigmatic letter as she embarks on an expedition to Utah to search for Quivira, the fabled Lost City of Gold. High-tech treasure hunter, Captain Neidelman, believes he has found a way to recover the pirate's treasure that is reputed to be buried on Ragged Island, but he is not fully prepared for the tide of evil his efforts will release When the farm community of Medicine Creek, Kansas, is terrorized by a series of disturbing murders, FBI agent Pendergast discovers a link between a moonshine operation and an unsolved killing from more than 150 years earlier When New York City construction workers uncover the remains of thirty-six people murdered and dismembered over 130 years ago, archaeologist Nora Kelly and Special Agent Pedergast set out to investigate the killings In the wake of a series of bizarre murders in which claw prints are found near each of the victims, agent Pendergast teams up with officer Vincent d'Agosta in an investigation with apparent ties to the supernatural