Gideon. An identity shrouded in mystery - the anonymous source who holds the key to an explosive secret. In a clandestine meeting, writer Carl Granville is hired to take the pages of an old diary, articles, letters, documents in which all proper names and locations have been blacked out - and turn them into compelling fiction. He will be paid a quarter of a million dollars. But he can never tell a soul.

As he is fed information and his work progresses, Granville begins to realize that Gideon's book is more than just a potential bestseller. It is a revelation of chilling evil and a decades-long cover-up by someone with far-reaching power. He starts to have second thoughts. How will his book be used? Whose lives will be shattered? What is the truth behind the story - and who is the true storyteller?

Then someone close to Granville is bludgeoned to death. Another is savagely murdered. His apartment is ransacked, his computer destroyed, all his records stolen. Suspicion falls on Granville. He tries to explain the shadowy assignment. No one believes him. He has no proof, no alibis...

Gideon is a high-concept political thriller by Russell Andrews (the pen name of a partnership between book editor Peter Gethers and mystery novelist David Handler).

When a promising New York writer named Carl Granville is paid a quarter of a million dollars to produce a novel called Gideon, he thinks it's his lucky break. The book is to be based on the material of an old diary--which Carl is allowed to look at, although certain dates and names have been blacked out. The diary and novel involve a 10-year-old Southern boy who killed his brain-damaged baby brother. Carl, baffled but glad of the huge payoff, gets on with translating the diary into a bestseller. But when the editor who commissioned the book is murdered, and nobody at the publishing house knows anything about the Gideon project, the writer realizes that sinister forces are at large. Just to add to his troubles, Granville is accused of the editor's murder and is forced to go on the run to escape the FBI and an assassin. His only chance for clearing his name is to reveal who wrote the decades-old journal.

Gideon is an invigorating read with a remarkably fresh plot and a highly likable and believable protagonist.

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