The Chase

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Penguin, 2007 - Fiction - 404 pages
For decades, Clive Cussler has been delighting readers with novels filled with suspense, action, and sheer audacity. Now he does it again, in one of the wildest, most entertaining historical thrillers in years.

April 1950: The rusting hulk of a steam locomotive rises from the deep waters of a Montana lake. Inside is all that remains of three men who died forty-four years before. But it is not the engine or its grisly contents that interest the people watching nearby. It is what is about to come next . . .

1906: For two years, the western states of America have been suffering an extraordinary crime spree: a string of bank robberies by a single man who cold- bloodedly murders any and all witnesses and then vanishes without a trace. Fed up by the depredations of the "Butcher Bandit," the U.S. government brings in the best man they can find-a tall, lean, no-nonsense detective named Isaac Bell, who has caught thieves and killers coast to coast.

But Bell has never had a challenge like this one. From Arizona to Colorado to the streets of San Francisco during its calamitous earthquake and fire, he pursues what is quickly becoming clear to him is the sharpest criminal mind he has ever encountered, and the woman who seems to hold the key to the bandit's identity. Using science, deduction, and intuition, Bell repeatedly draws near only to grasp at thin air, but at least he knows his pursuit is having an effect. Because his quarry is getting angry now, and has turned the chase back on him. The hunter has become the hunted. And soon it will take all of Isaac Bell's skills not merely to prevail . . . but to survive.

Filled with intricate plotting, dazzling signature set pieces, and not one but two extraordinary villains, this is the work of a master writing at the height of his powers.

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About the author (2007)

Clive Cussler is the Grand Master of Adventure, and author or coauthor of more than forty previous books, including twenty-one Dirk Pitt� novels, most recently Crescent Dawn; nine NUMA� Files adventures, most recently Devil's Gate; eight Oregon Files books, most recently The Jungle; the Isaac Bell historical thrillers, most recently The Thief; three Fargo adventures, most recently The Kingdom; and young adult novels, most recently, The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy. His nonfiction works include Built for Adventure, The Sea Hunters , and The Sea Hunters II; the latter two describe the true adventures of the real NUMA�, which, led by Cussler, searches for ships of historic significance. With his crew of volunteers, Cussler has discovered more than sixty ships, including the long-lost Confederate submarine Hunley. He lives in Arizona.

Justin Scott's twenty-four novels include The Shipkiller and Normandie Triangle; the Ben Abbott detective series; and five modern sea thrillers published under his pen name Paul Garrison.

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