Thursday, August 23, 2007

Pg. 69: Humphrey Hawksley's "The History Book"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: Humphrey Hawksley's The History Book.

About the book, from the publisher:
Kathleen 'Kat' Polinski — burglar, hacker, undercover agent — returns home from a deadly mission at the Kazakh Embassy in Washington, DC, to find a cryptic message from her sister. Soon after, she learns that her sister Suzy has been murdered — shot with a highpowered rifle in a desolate spot 100 miles outside of London.

What was Suzy doing there? Did it have anything to do with the controversial Project Peace? An international security agreement, Project Peace allows constant surveillance and loss of individual freedom in the name of stability and order. Kat must use every weapon at her disposal, from martial arts to computer hacking, to bring her sister's killer to justice. But in her search for answers, she discovers an increasingly plausible threat that could destroy the world as we know it....

From the first explosive chapter, you're hooked on this near-future thriller and Kat Polinski, its new-style heroine.

Among the praise for The History Book:
"The plot is full of surprises and its political implications are worth pondering…. The History Book is an updated version of George Orwell's 1984."
--Washington Post

"High-stakes, high-octane thriller ... my kind of book."
--Lee Child

"Very contemporary ... a good, taut thriller."
--Alan Furst

"The savage dystopia that Humphrey Hawksley has created ... is, sad to say, all too believable in our post 9-11 world But this book offers so much more ... it is a complex, intelligent, skillfully-turned adventure story that will keep the reader spellbound."
--Simon Winchester

"A whirlwind thriller....one hairsbreadth escape after another."
--Publishers Weekly
Read an excerpt from The History Book and learn more at Hawksley's web site.

Check out the video: The History Book Movie.

Humphrey Hawksley is a bestselling novelist and a leading BBC foreign correspondent and commentator on world affairs.

The Page 69 Test: The History Book.

--Marshal Zeringue