false 26011 46438 0451219953 9780451219954 445 <![CDATA[The Last Templar]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170330403m/46438.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46438.The_Last_Templar 3.22 2295 26011 3.21 3133 628 376008 052595029X 9780525950295 71 <![CDATA[The Sanctuary]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/376008.The_Sanctuary 3.27 405 In the powerful new thriller from the author of the international bestseller The Last Templar, a geneticist and a CIA agent on a deadly quest to find the most dangerous book in the world discover a secret that has destroyed everyone in its path for centuries

Naples, 1750. In the dead of night, three men with swords burst into the palazzo of a marquis. Their leader, the Prince of San Severo, accuses the marquis of being an imposter, and demands to know a secret only the marquis harbors. In the fight that ensues, the false marquis escapes over the rooftops of Naples, leaving behind a burning palazzo and a raging prince now obsessed with finding his quarry at any cost.

Baghdad, 2003. An army unit on a routine mission makes a horrifying discovery: a state- of-the-art, concealed lab where dozens—men, women, children—have died, the subjects of gruesome experiments. The mysterious scientist they were after, a man believed to be working on a bioweapon and known only as the hakeem—the doctor—escapes, taking with him the startling truth about his work. A puzzling clue is left behind: a circular symbol of a snake feeding on its own tail.

As the power of the symbol comes to light, revealing the centuries of destruction left in its wake, one unsuspecting woman stands at the center of a conspiracy that could change the world forever. In the masterful hands of international bestseller Raymond Khoury, The Sanctuary delivers the same rapid-fire suspense and provocative scholarship that made The Last Templar a coast-to-coast blockbuster.]]> 26011 3.21 3133 628 3851330 0525950974 9780525950974 47 <![CDATA[The Sign]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign 3.06 158 Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar

New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.

In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.

Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.

Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?

Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview

STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?

RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.

STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?

RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.

STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.

RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.

STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.

RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—

STEVE: —by intolerance—

RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.

STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?

STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?

RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—

STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.

RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?

STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?

RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.

STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?

RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?

STEVE: Guilty as charged.

RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!

STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—

RAYMOND: —I know!

STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?

RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.

STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.

RAYMOND: Thank you.]]> 26011 3.21 3133 628 1392603 9793972157 12 <![CDATA[Messiah Conspiracy]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1183234610m/1392603.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1392603.Messiah_Conspiracy 3.33 51
****

Di Manhattan masa kini, empat orang penunggang kuda berpakaian seperti Kesatria Templar merangsek masuk ke Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mereka menyerang dan membunuh siapa saja yang menghalangi, lalu keluar dari museum dengan membawa sebuah rotor pembuat sandi peninggalan abad ke-16.

FBI segera melakukan investigasi yang dipimpin oleh seorang agen antiteroris, Sean Reilly. Temuan awal mereka begitu mengejutkan: Satu demi satu penunggang kuda tersebut ditemukan dalam keadaan tewas! Bersama Tess Chaykin, arkeolog yang menjadi saksi kejadian di museum, Sean menemukan indikasi bahwa rotor yang dicuri itu berhubungan dengan menghilangnya The Falcon Temple beserta para penumpang dan rahasia yang dibawanya. Bahkan mungkin rotor itu merupakan kunci dari rahasia yang telah tersembunyi selama dua milenium. Rahasia besar yang kemungkinan berupa: Injil Kristus... Injil yang ditulis oleh tangan Kristus sendiri!

Injil Kristus diperkirakan memuat banyak hal yang tidak selaras dengan keyakinan masyarakat masa kini. Tentu hal ini akan sangat merugikan banyak pihak. Investigasi pun berubah menjadi pertempuran berdarah. Sean dan Tess terseret arus konspirasi internasional yang mematikan, melintasi tiga benua-dari Manhattan ke pegunungan di Turki, lalu ke kepulauan terpencil di Yunani, hingga ke jantung Vatikan! Bila benar-benar eksis, pengungkapan Injil Kristus niscaya bakal mengguncang agama-agama mapan. Pengungkapan Injil Kristus akan mengubah peta kekuatan dunia, membalik nasib begitu banyak orang seperti membalikkan telapak tangan. Peradaban masyarakat modern pun dipertaruhkan...

]]> 26011 3.21 3133 628 1943772 3499242087 9783499242083 2 <![CDATA[Scriptum]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1190670146m/1943772.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1943772.Scriptum 3.07 14 Schnell reagiert: kaum erschien das Buch in der Originalausgabe in England, begeistert es auch schon als deutsche Erstausgabe den hiesigen Buchmarkt. Zudem präsentiert sich der mit 560 Seiten üppige Thriller nicht nur passend zur Weihnachtszeit, sondern sicher auch noch rechtzeitig, um auf den längst noch nicht abgeebbten Wogen und Wellen von Dan Browns Sakrileg mit zu schwimmen. Der Stoff, aus dem die Kirchengeschichte ist, er interessiert und fesselt, Geschichten über Verschwörungen, alte Schätze und geheime Bünde begeistern, zumal, wenn so aufbereitet und angereichert. Allerdings: an Tiefgang und Niveau eines Dan Brown kommt Raymond Khoury nicht heran, aber für ein Schattendasein gibt es dennoch keinen Grund: absolut fesselnd, stellenweise sehr lehrreich und dann wieder bis zur Gänsehaut packend geht es zu, wenn das FBI, der Vatikan und eine junge, natürlich nicht unattraktive Archäologin gemeinsam ermitteln, aber nicht unbedingt dem gleichen Ziele folgend. „Eines der ältesten und dunkelsten Geheimnisse des Vatikans droht entdeckt zu werden.“ Für alte Manuskripte wird gemordet. Schriften, die ans Licht bringen sollen, was „seit allzu langer Zeit verschollen ist. Etwas, das alles in die rechte Ordnung bringen wird.“

Khoury ist von Haus aus Architekt und hat eine raffinierte Story gebaut, stabil mit vielen phantasiereichen Fenstern, die Luft und Lesefreude schaffen, weitreichende Recherche bietet das trittsichere Fundament, die Türen sind so placiert, dass man stets voller Spannung neue Räume betritt, die Überraschungen und auch Leichen verbergen. Die Kapitel sind kurz, fast im Minutentakt zu lesen und zu verschlingen. Schnell ist man mitten im Geschehen, einer anderen Welt, die farbig, aufregend und mörderisch spannend ist. --Barbara Wegmann

]]> 26011 3.21 3133 628 154096 3.71 38 5 541920 3.09 22 4 617742 3.17 18 4 6150552 2258076196 9782258076198 0 <![CDATA[Eternalis]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6150552.Eternalis 3.00 1 26011 3.21 3133 628 2803801 3.00 1 0 6659234 8466639756 9788466639750 0 <![CDATA[La senal]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6659234-la-senal 0.0 0 26011 3.21 3133 628 7324381 0451998634 9780451998637 0 <![CDATA[The Sign 18-copy solid floor Display]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7324381-the-sign-18-copy-solid-floor-display 0.0 0 26011 3.21 3133 628 7324382 0451998030 9780451998033 0 <![CDATA[The Sign 24-copy solid floor Display]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7324382-the-sign-24-copy-solid-floor-display 0.0 0 26011 3.21 3133 628 7113648 2258080789 9782258080782 0 <![CDATA[Le signe]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7113648-le-signe 0.0 0 26011 3.21 3133 628 70572 4.26 35 7 6751985 3499244756 9783499244759 0 <![CDATA[Immortalis]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6751985-immortalis 0.0 0 26011 3.21 3133 628