The Fire: A Novel
Katherine Neville
Language: English
Pages: 451
ISBN: 0345500679
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Katherine Neville’s groundbreaking novel, The Eight, dazzled audiences more than twenty years ago and set the literary stage for the epic thriller. A quest for a mystical chess service that once belonged to Charlemagne, it spans two centuries and three continents, and intertwines historic and modern plots, archaeological treasure hunts, esoteric riddles, and puzzles encrypted with clues from the ancient past. Now the electrifying global adventure continues, in Neville’s long anticipated sequel: THE FIRE
2003, Colorado: Alexandra Solarin is summoned home to her family’s ancestral Rocky Mountain hideaway for her mother’s birthday. Thirty years ago, her parents, Cat Velis and Alexander Solarin, believed that they had scattered the pieces of the Montglane Service around the world, burying with them the secrets of the power that comes with possessing it. But Alexandra arrives to find that her mother is missing and that a series of strategically placed clues, followed swiftly by the unexpected arrival of a mysterious assortment of houseguests, indicates that something sinister is afoot.
When she inadvertently discovers from her aunt, the chess grandmaster Lily Rad, that the most powerful piece of Charlemagne’s service has suddenly resurfaced and the Game has begun again, Alexandra is swept into a journey that takes her from Colorado to the Russian wilderness and at last into the heart of her own hometown: Washington D.C.
1822, Albania: Thirty years after the French Revolution, when the chess service was unearthed, all of Europe hovers on the brink of the War of Greek Independence. Ali Pasha, the most powerful ruler in the Ottoman Empire, has angered the sultan and is about to be attacked by Turkish forces. Now he sends the only person he can rely upon–his young daughter, Haidee–on a dangerous mission to smuggle a valuable relic out of Albania, through the mountains and over the sea, to the hands of the one man who might be able to save it.
Haidee’s journey from Albania to Morocco to Rome to Greece, and into the very heart of the Game, will result in revelations about the powerful chess set and its history that will lead at last to the spot where the service was first created more than one thousand years before: Baghdad.
Blending exquisite prose and captivating history with nonstop suspense, Neville again weaves an unforgettable story of peril, action, and intrigue.
Carême could not go on. Despite the fresh air in the garden, or perhaps because of it, his chronic cough had returned to grasp him by the throat once more. “You sacrifice yourself to that holy profession and those coals of yours, my friend,” observed Talleyrand, raising a hand to call for a steward, who ran from the house with another coupe of champagne and gave it to the chef. When the servant had left, Talleyrand added, “You know why I have brought you here, of course?” Carême nodded, still
him. But Haidée knew that time was of the essence. She reached out to Kauri, who set the water pipe into her hand, along with a small balance with a new measure of shredded tobacco. She lifted the lid and scooped the tobacco onto the coals. When the smoke rose into the pipe, she wafted some of the fumes back to her father. Byron coughed slightly and opened his eyes. He looked upon his daughter with enormous love and sorrow. “Father,” she said, “I must ask you, how did this information ever
unobtrusively in that quarter-million-dollar Vanquish in the Targhee parking lot. Luckily, there were no observers around to see them. But how did they get here, with the forest shut down for winter? Key’s sidekicks must include every park ranger on the planet, I thought. The girls had exited the car to greet us, while Key began loading Mother’s bags into the back. Zsa-Zsa, reaching out from Lily’s arms, gave me a big wet kiss. I wiped it off on my sleeve. Lily went over to embrace my mother.
now. That’s what I was chosen for. This contingency was already planned for, you know, practically since I was born.” As she held the gun loosely in one hand, she studied the nails of her other as if it had been entirely too many minutes since yesterday’s manicure. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, when she looked up at Vartan and me and added, “Apparently, neither of you has even the vaguest conception of who I am.” Those words again. But this time—suddenly—I did know. Slowly, the
the great technical, fuel and refueling, and flight and landing info in which Key is so well-versed; Cooper Wright, who works in Attu for detailed maps and descriptions of flying in the Aleutians and for the great Brian Garfield book The Thousand-Mile War, which describes the weather conditions in World War II. BAGHDAD: Special thanks to Jim Wilkinson, chief of staff of the U.S. Treasury, for casually mentioning over lunch one day—just when I thought I was in the home stretch of writing this