Authors: Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Length: Average (aprox. 400 p.)
Rating: 4.25 out of 5
Official Description:
At the tender age of twelve, Gideon Crew witnessed the brutal murder of his father, a scientist wrongly framed by the US government, and shot down by police during a hostage crisis.
More than twenty years later, Gideon finally gets his revenge and fulfills the promise that he made to his mother on her death bed to clear their family name.
He brings down the man who destroyed his father. But then a mysterious witness steps forward to confront Gideon on his crime - and to offer him the chance of a lifetime...
What I liked:
This was an exciting, tense book that hooked me from the start and never let up the suspense. The character Gideon Crew is well-developed and fun to read about. Over the course of the book I came to really appreciate and enjoy his ingenuity and social engineering skills as well as his very human feelings. The mystery gains depth and magnitude the further the reader delves into the book and its bizarre nature is extremely compelling. The climax was tense and I had no idea how it would turn out until the final pages, keeping up with my expectations from the authors' Pendergast series.
What I didn't like:
When I first picked up this book, I enjoyed the son-avenging-father dynamic and I think that story alone could have been a fantastic novel. As it is, that part of the story is over within the first 50 pages of the book and it is simply a platform for the rest of the novel which has nothing to do with Gideon's revenge. There was a significant lack of closure at the ending and it transitioned straight into the next novel, which seems to have nothing to do with the events of Gideon's Sword.
Overall, this was a great book and it fully lived up to my expectations. Preston and Child are able to create action-packed, deep stories full of twists and turns that satisfied my hunger for intrigue. I recommend this book for those who enjoy the Pendergast novels and anyone who loves a good mystery. Doug and Linc do not disappoint and I eagerly await the next installment in this series.
~Ben
