A standalone thriller. New readers can start right here.
When Professor Jack Sullivan is asked to decode a cipher from the war's final days, he expects a historical curiosity. Instead, he uncovers a threat Jefferson Davis died protecting, a secret never meant to resurface.
Jack, his fiancée Emma Wilson, and former SEAL Steve Johnson are pulled into a hunt more dangerous than any battlefield. From Washington's archives to the back alleys of New Orleans, from the coast of Mexico to the shadowed ridges of Arkansas, every trail leads deeper into the world of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a brotherhood long believed defunct.
But the Knights didn't disappear. They became patient.
For 160 years they studied what force could never win. They embedded themselves in the institutions Americans trust, and waited for the moment when they wouldn't need to seize power. They would be invited to take it.
Now their heirs have risen. A cartel is running weapons north while a cyberattack probes the power grid, and a senator climbs toward power on the fear both create. Jack begins to realize he was never hunting the treasure. He was being led to it.
Joined by Homeland cyber analyst Priya Patel and hunted by enemies he cannot see, Jack has four days to break a design older than anyone imagined before the trap closes around everyone he loves.
Some secrets don't stay buried. They grow roots.
Great for fans of Steve Berry and Clive Cussler.
"The high-stakes, of-the-moment, infiltrated-America suspense simply does not let up."
~ BookLife by Publishers Weekly
"One part Jack Reacher, one part Indiana Jones... an impressively entertaining action thriller."
~ Kirkus Reviews ("GET IT")
"Leng lets history press against the present, sometimes like a warning and sometimes like a buried fuse." ~ Literary Titan
David R Leng is the award-winning author of the Echoes of Fortune historical conspiracy thriller series, winner of three PenCraft Awards, including Thriller of the Year and back-to-back Best Thriller honors, two Literary Titan Gold Awards, and a Kirkus Reviews "GET IT" selection.
A lifelong resident of Southwestern Pennsylvania, David grew up in the shadow of the same battlefields his characters explore. He spent summers near the Shades of Death wilderness in western Maryland and has kayaked the Youghiogheny River, where a chance encounter with a stranger carrying a metal detector and asking about Braddock's gold planted the seed for the series.
His debut novel, The Search for Braddock's Lost Gold, follows historian Jack Sullivan into the unsolved mystery of General Braddock's vanished army payroll from the 1755 Battle of the Monongahela. The series has since expanded to the sunken Confederate secrets of Shadows Over Cozumel and the shadowed world of the Knights of the Golden Circle.
When he is not unraveling centuries-old conspiracies, David can be found scuba diving, boating, or in his woodshop. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and family.
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