Gideon's Sword
Gideon Crew Series, No 1
Read by John Glover
Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Hachette Audio
November 1, 2011 / ISBN: 1611136911
Thriller / Adventure / Audiobook / CDs
Amazon

Reviewed by Reviewed by Jo Rogers

Preston and Child, favorites of mine, return with a new story, a new hero, and what appears to be a new series. Though the story was harder to get into, it soon intrigued me. I'm not sure whether the difficulty getting engrossed stemmed from the disappointment that Special Agent Pendergast wasn't involved or the nature of the story, but I suspect it was largely the former.

The story begins when Gideon Crew was a child. His mother was driving him home from tennis lessons when they were pulled over by the police. She was told to follow them to her husband's office building in Washington, D. C. There, she talked her husband into letting the hostage go and coming out of the building, after he was promised he would not be harmed and there would be an investigation into an incident where twenty-nine people died. As he stood in the doorway, a shot rang out and Melvin Crew dropped to the ground. As the police led Gideon away, he saw his dad's feet move and knew he still lived.

The story then takes up after Gideon is grown. Before his mother died, she told him what really happened with his father, how he had been made a scapegoat, his name ruined, to cover up someone else's mistake. Gideon vowed to kill the man.

This novel lacks the smoothness the Pendergast novels have, but Gideon Crew lacks the genteel elegance of Pendergast. Gideon Crew is not the suave gentleman of the south, he has had a rougher life than the wealthy Pendergast, but he is equally resourceful, determined, and impossible to kill. He will grow on you if you let him. So, listen to Gideon's Swordand give him that chance.

Gideon's Corpse [review]