List of novels by Lincoln Child

(Redirected from Death Match (novel))

The American author Lincoln Child has released a number of novels and works.

Stand-alone novels

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Utopia (2002)

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Utopia
 
AuthorLincoln Child
GenreThriller
PublisherDoubleday
Publication date
December 2, 2002
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (paperback)
Pages464
ISBN0-385-50668-6
OCLC48706520

Utopia is the first solo novel by Lincoln Child, published in 2002. It is set in a futuristic amusement park called Utopia, a park that relies heavily on holographics and robotics. Dr. Andrew Warne, the man who designed the program that runs the park's robots, is called in to help fix a problem. But when he gets there, he finds out that the park is being held hostage by a mysterious man known as John Doe.

Utopia consists of five "Worlds", each modeled after different time eras.

  • The Nexus: A neutral setting between the Worlds.
  • Gaslight: Based on Victorian London.
  • Camelot: A medieval kingdom.
  • Boardwalk: A reproduction of a sea side amusement park.
  • Callisto: A futuristic spaceport above Jupiter's sixth moon.
  • Atlantis: A water park based on the lost continent of Atlantis (in the novel, Atlantis is still under construction, and is seen in the epilogue).

A review in Publishers Weekly criticized the "Sluggish prose and overload of technical detail", but admired the book's conclusion as properly thrilling.[1] One blogger called it a "page turner¨ [2] and another blogger admired Child keeping it suspenseful as to which characters would survive and which would perish.[3]

Death Match (2004)

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Death Match
AuthorLincoln Child
GenreThriller
PublisherDoubleday
Publication date
2004
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (paperback)
Pages416
ISBN0-307-27556-6
OCLC74831115

Death Match is a 2004 horror novel by Lincoln Child. It is his second solo novel. It is a techno-horror look at electronic matchmaking where for a substantial sum of money, the computer will locate a 'perfect match' for anyone. However, these most perfect of matches ('supercouples, 100% compatibility, etc.) suddenly start seeing mysterious tragedy. The plot begins with a "supercouple" found dead in their Arizona home, in an apparent double suicide.

Jeremy Logan series

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Deep Storm (2007)

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Deep Storm
 
First Edition
AuthorLincoln Child
SeriesJeremy Logan
GenreThriller, Science fiction
Published30 January 2007
PublisherDoubleday
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (Hardcover, Softcover)
Pages384
ISBN978-0-385-51550-4
OCLC70219907

Deep Storm is the third solo novel by American author Lincoln Child, published on January 30, 2007. This is the first of Child's novels to introduce Dr. Jeremy Logan, the protagonist of Child's solo works.

In the prologue, three workers – Kevin Lindengood, Fred Hicks, and John Wherry – are operating the rig on the Storm King oil rig in the North Atlantic, off the coast of Greenland. When the equipment begins malfunctioning, Wherry orders everything to be shut down. However, even after Lindengood shuts off the electromagnet, a series of strange signals are still being transmitted to their devices.

Twenty months later, Former naval doctor Peter Crane is sent to investigate a mysterious illness that has broken out on the rig. He meets Dr. Howard Asher, who hints at a fantastic secret being discovered. Government officials transport him to a massive, 12-level facility run by the United States military. He receives a confidential envelope that explains how the military has discovered Atlantis. As he is brought down into the facility, codenamed Deep Storm, he discovers that nearly a quarter of the staff have been acting strangely within the last few weeks. Working alongside the psychiatrist Dr. Roger Corbett and the chief military doctor Michele Bishop, Crane is witness to one of these incidents; a worker named Randall Waite suddenly grabs a hostage after screaming about "voices" in his head, then eventually stabs himself in the neck with a screwdriver. After interviewing some of the patients there, and finding many of the symptoms including sleeplessness, lack of focus, nausea, and psychological effects such as changes in personality, Crane realizes that there must be some kind of unifying basis to all of them.

Meanwhile, Asher talks with the military commander in charge of Deep Storm, Admiral Spartan, and his second-in-command, Commander Terrence Korolis. Asher thinks that Crane should have the right to go down to the “classified” levels, levels 6 through 1, to investigate the cause of the sickness, After this, the base is set on alert after a pinhole breach in one of the corridors. The officers determine it was an act of sabotage and Asher reminds all of the heads of departments to be vigilant, while Korolis brings in a team of black ops soldiers, who answer directly to him rather than Spartan, to reinforce security.[4] Asher also shows Crane several "sentinels" that they have found: cube-shaped objects with a texture that seems to consist of every color known to man, and emit thin beams of light straight up, and gravitate to the center of any room or container they are kept in. Asher tells him that this is actually not a solid beam of light, but a pulse sending out a mini signal in binary code. He further goes on to say that he hired his personal cryptographer, Joseph Marris, to analyze this binary code since he believes that this technology is not meant for humans. Admiral Spartan and his forces come in at this instant and, much to Crane's surprise, give him clearance to visit the entire facility. Crane goes down and meets Hui Ping, a doctor who is also trying to analyze the beams of light. Ping and Crane also agree to leave no stone unturned and check for any kind of similarity all the patients may have.

Meanwhile, back on the mainland, Lindengood gets in contact with a man named Wallace, who represents a shadowy organization that has taken a great interest in the discovery after Lindengood provides them with certain information. However, unbeknownst to him, they plan to simply destroy whatever is down there. When Lindengood demands an increased pay for his information, Wallace kills him and flees to Storm King, working undercover as a crew member and regularly shipping supplies to a fellow insider on Deep Storm.

A few days later, Asher reaches a breakthrough with the binomial code, and realizes that it is a mathematical expression: 1 divided by 0. A while later, after Crane mistakenly handles a sentinel with his bare hand, Asher excitedly describes how the sentinel's broadcasts are now more clear, and they can now analyze messages on the infra-red spectrum, radioactive spectrum, and any other kind of measuring device know to man. However, during this exchange, Peter notices how Asher has a very pale complexion and bruising along his arm. He requests that Asher go to medical, but Asher disagrees, saying that he could spend time in the Hyperbaric chamber as a way to alleviate his illness for a short time, just until they decode the rest of the messages coming from the sentinel. At this point, Crane runs a brain scan on all of the patients and discovers that they all do have something in common; all of their brain waves spike in formation, even their theta waves. He realizes that this is another signal coming from the source. He also realizes the implications, that whoever made this technology is much more powerful than humans. He is about to tell Asher of his discovery when Asher phones him saying that he decoded all of the messages. However, upon his arrival at the Hyperbaric chamber, the saboteur has struck again, burning the Hyperbaric chamber with Asher and Marris both inside. Asher is nearly dead but manages to say one word to Crane before he dies: Whip. Along with Ping, Crane does not realize what this means, but then figures out that they could possibly salvage the hard drive and look at the decoded messages from Asher's laptop. However, Commander Korolis records the conversation and hurriedly runs a degaussing magnet over the hard drive, erasing it. He notices how Asher did not want to continue with the digging, and assumes that whatever is on the hard drive is not relevant and would halt America from recovering possibly beneficial technology.

Korolis subsequently frames Ping as the saboteur, forcing Crane and Ping into hiding as they decipher Asher's hard drive. They go to a deserted physics lab and realize that the hard drive was magnetized. Despite this, Ping manages to resurrect the data using a crude form of magnetic force microscopy, and as they peer onto the screen they realize that the other messages included  , π=a/b and  , other impossible mathematical equations. Because humans place passive and active ways to warn people of the danger of such stored weapons, Crane assumes aliens think the same way and the sentinels are actually a message warning advanced civilizations to stay off earth. This deciphers the mathematical expressions because the "forbidden" mathematical maneuvers are the only way aliens can communicate with other more sophisticated races.

Crane leaves Ping and goes to warn Spartan of this danger. Spartan initially does not seem to take the hint, and still believes that there is beneficial technology there. Frustrated, Crane goes to Dr. Bishop and asks her to organize the other heads of departments into believing him. Bishop promises to call him back but is discovered by Dr. Corbett an hour later in the Environmental Control section, wiring C-4 into the facility's wall. Corbett secretly switches on his phone, dials his intern, and confronts Bishop. She does not deny it, instead revealing that she is a radical with anti-American ideals, and how she believes that America has no right to take this technology. She shoots him with a silenced pistol and quickly leaves at the sound of approaching voices. Corbett is barely alive, and starts to disable the C4, but Bishop re-enters the room and finds him. In his panic, he accidentally activates the fourth and final detonator, killing himself and Bishop and blowing open the facility wall. The resulting leak floods all of level 8 and half of level 7.

Meanwhile, Spartan tells Korolis about how Crane's advice does make sense, and he is going to call for an investigation before starting the drilling again. Korolis, determined to acquire the technology no matter what, and believing that Spartan has become infected with the disease, knocks Spartan unconscious, locks him in his quarters, and assumes command.

Crane and Ping meet with Dr. Gene Vanderbilt, the ranking science officer of levels 8 through 12, and he orders a mass evacuation of all personnel on levels 9 through 12, as those on level 8 and below (including Korolis) are stranded by the flood. They round up all 112 people on the higher levels and begin the evacuation process. A single black ops soldier arrives at the ladder to the escape pod as the group begins to escape, and he orders them to return to their stations. A wounded Spartan then appears and guns the soldier down, ordering everyone to evacuate while he stays behind to fend off any other approaching soldiers. He gives Crane the card of his contact in Washington, simply named McPherson, and tells Crane to tell McPherson everything. During this time, Ping manages to decode another of the warnings which suggests that uncovering the weapons could destroy the Solar System. The survivors manage to launch the escape pod shortly before Korolis and his men discover a fantastic weapons cache of stable orbiting black holes. Before they can investigate further, a blast that is presumed to be one of the active countermeasures is fired, consuming the drill team and Deep Storm.

In the epilogue several months later, a small salvaging operation of various wreckage from Deep Storm is underway, and the other insider from the Storm King platform, Wallace, has been arrested. Crane and Ping have met up with McPherson, and Crane tells McPherson the entire story. They listen to a recorded tape of Korolis before his death, and agree not to tell anyone of this discovery, as no one was meant to access such powerful weapons. Crane reasons that whoever put the sentinels there were also cautious enough to provide obvious warning signals, as evident by the impossible mathematic equations. However, McPherson raises two disturbing points: The aliens more than likely consider humans to be negligible due to their primitive technology, hence the violent placing of the devices in the earth as recounted by Albarn 600 years ago; and also that humans at least deactivate weapons before storing them, but because the aliens did not attempt this at all, McPherson thinks that this is not a waste dump at all; it is an active storage facility of weapons for future use.

Terminal Freeze (2009)

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Terminal Freeze
 
Hardcover edition
AuthorLincoln Child
SeriesJeremy Logan
GenreThriller, Science fiction
PublisherRandom House
Publication date
January 27, 2009
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardcover)
Pages576
ISBN978-0-7393-2826-2
OCLC227929898

Terminal Freeze is the fourth solo novel by Lincoln Child. The novel was released on February 24, 2009, by Random House. It is the second novel in the Jeremy Logan series.

The events take place in Alaska, north of the Arctic Circle. A decommissioned military base located near the fictional Mount Fear, the Mount Fear Remote Sensing Installation, is being used by a research team from Northern Massachusetts University to study the effects of global warming on a receding glacier. The team consists of five scientists from the university - Evan Marshall, a paleoecologist; Gerard Sully, a climatologist and the team leader; Wright Faraday, an evolutionary biologist; Ang Chen, a graduate student; and Penny Barbour, a computer scientist - along with the skeleton crew of four soldiers - Corporal Marcelin, Privates First Class Tad Phillips and Donovan Fluke, and the leader, Sergeant Paul Gonzalez.

The expedition discovers a monstrous ancient animal, presumed to be a preserved example of Smilodon populator, frozen in solid ice inside a lava tube made into an ice cave. The expedition's corporate sponsors, Terra Prime and its parent corporation Blackpool Entertainment, sense huge publicity and decide to have the beast cut from the ice, thawed, and revealed live on television. A massive entourage is sent to the base to begin production of the documentary, and the new crew includes Kari Ekberg, the field producer; Emilio Conti, the eccentric director (along with his assistant Hulce); Allan Fortnum, the director of photography; Ken Toussaint, the assistant director of photography; Wolff, the network liaison and channel representative; George Creel, the production foreman; and Ashleigh Davis, the spoiled host and star of the show (along with her assistant Brianna). The group is later joined by the truck driver Carradine, who brings Davis' luxurious trailer to the site, and a man who hitched a ride with Carradine, named Dr. Jeremy Logan, a private investigator and Yale professor of medieval history.

Meanwhile, local Tunit people, led by their chief Usuguk, try to warn the scientists that they do not understand what they have found. Specific warnings are that the entire mountain it was found in is a place of evil, the creature exists only for the sole purpose of killing, and that the Tunit do not believe it is dead. In addition, after a reexamination of the creature by Marshall, Faraday, and Barbour, it is revealed that the creature is not a Smilodon at all, but a new, unknown animal entirely, which may be up to 16 feet in length. However, Conti and Wolff are determined to move forward with the production, up until the creature suddenly vanishes from the vault it is being stored in. Although they initially believe it to be stolen, analysis of the hole in the vault floor by Faraday reveals that the incisions in the wood were made from the inside, and appear to be made by something more natural than a tool. Meanwhile, Logan reveals to Marshall that he is investigating the base itself after uncovering recently declassified government documents, detailing an incident at the base in 1958 that resulted in the deaths of 7 of the 8 scientists there. The incident, however, was forgotten when the officer reporting it, Colonel H.N. Rose, died in a plane crash with the full, detailed report.

When a production assistant named Josh Peters, Davis, and Fluke are all suddenly and brutally killed, along with Toussaint and Brianna being wounded, Gonzalez decides that the base has to be evacuated immediately. Carradine offers to transport everyone in his semi's trailer, and although Wolff initially objects, Gonzalez overrides him and agrees. Everyone boards the trailer and flees, leaving behind only the three remaining soldiers, Marshall, Logan, Ekberg, Sully, Conti, Wolff, Faraday, and Creel. After Logan investigates the abandoned quarters of the base's previous science team, he discovers a small journal left behind and hidden in a crawlspace by one of the former occupants, which, among other things, says that the Tunit have the answer to whatever it was that killed the team. Marshall decides to take the Sno-Cat and travel to the Tunit village, only to find that all of the Tunit have fled for the shoreline, leaving behind only the elderly shaman Usuguk. After Marshall's pleas for help and information about the monster, Usuguk reveals that he was the sole survivor of the crew of '58, and agrees to go back to the base with Marshall. Once they return, Usuguk explains the full story, and how the crew of the base discovered a similar creature similarly encased in ice, cut it out, and brought it back to the base. Usuguk calls it the kurrshuq (the "Fang of the Gods" and the "Devourer of Souls"), a local legend among the Tunit people for generations, and shocks everyone by explaining that the creature, upon thawing out and coming alive, was actually quiet friendly and playful. However, only after one scientist attempted to study its hunting habits by playing recordings of animal screams, did the creature suddenly turn violent and kill all except Usuguk. He then reveals one final, chilling detail: The kurrshuq that killed the team in 1958, before it also suddenly died and its body vanished, was no bigger than an Arctic fox; far smaller than this creature.

Meanwhile, the three soldiers and Creel (who volunteered to stay behind due to his hunting and military experience) all begin searching the base for the creature. Once they finally encounter it, it kills Creel and Marcelin while Gonzalez and Phillips return to the life sciences lab where the others are hiding. With Faraday's research of the blood found inside the vault, they realize that the creature has extremely advanced white blood cells that rapidly heal all wounds, and also contain the same compounds as PCP, thus giving the creature enormous and enduring strength. Marshall then speculates, after comparing all of the victims and the unusually distinct shape of the creature's ears, that the kurrshuq has extremely sensitive, sonar-like hearing, like a bat. He claims that, as Usuguk described and Toussaint himself raved about after being attacked, the creature likes to play with people rather than deliberately kill them, as none of its victims were actually eaten like a usual carnivore. Thus, the reason that all were killed except for Toussaint was because they screamed upon seeing the creature, and it killed them in order to stop the noise, just as the original kurrshuq did in 1958. Using this information, Marshall and Sully begin to construct a machine out of sonar technology to emit loud sounds that might be enough to ward off the creature. When Ekberg radios in for help after the monster kills Conti and Wolff (as the three had left on their own in a final attempt to film the creature), Marshall leaves to bring her back, and both return just as the monster appears. Sully tries several different frequencies of sound on the creature, with the final kind - the sine waves - causing the creature noticeable pain. However, the creature kills Sully and briefly stops the machine. Marshall, realizing that it was finally working, starts dragging the machine into a large echo chamber in order to amplify the sounds even greater. Marshall, Logan, and Usuguk lure the creature in, and Marshall turns up the sine waves even louder, causing the creature to collapse and writhe in agony before its head explodes.

In the epilogue, as the remaining crew members - Marshall, Logan, Ekberg, Faraday, Gonzalez, and Phillips - are being evacuated, the scientists are still baffled by the nature of the creature, as its corpse had suddenly disappeared after it supposedly died. After Usuguk leaves, Marshall speculates that perhaps the theory Usuguk had been insisting all along was true; that the creature was a creation of the spirits that rule this land according to Tunit culture, and that both the new kurrshuq and the older one had left the physical world for the spirit world, as Usuguk claimed they did. Logan cryptically mentions how he once lost a pet dachshund while on a family trip, implying that he believes the creature was left behind by extraterrestrial visitors. A budding relationship between Marshall and Ekberg is hinted at, and Logan bids them farewell, saying that he's gotten a call from his private investigation office about another interesting case.

The setting and story of the book is very similar to the novella Who Goes There?, featuring an arctic setting where a group of scientists uncover and thaw out a mysterious creature in the ice, which then breaks free and runs amuck. Tunit was the name assigned to the Dorset people in Greenland by the early Thule proto-Inuit. The last Dorset survivors died in 1902 and no Dorset People ever lived in Alaska, being resident in eastern Canada and Greenland.

The Third Gate (2012)

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The Third Gate
 
Hardcover 1st edition
AuthorLincoln Child
SeriesJeremy Logan
GenreThriller
PublisherDoubleday
Publication date
June 12, 2012
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint, e-book, audiobook
Pages320
ISBN978-0385531382

The Third Gate is the fifth solo novel by American writer Lincoln Child. The novel was released on June 12, 2012, by Doubleday.[5] The book is also the third installment in the Jeremy Logan series.

Shortly after the events of Terminal Freeze, Dr. Jeremy Logan is contacted by an old colleague named Dr. Ethan Rush, who invites him on an expedition into the Sudd in southern Egypt. The expedition, led by famed archaeologist Dr. Porter Stone, seeks to finally locate and excavate the long-lost tomb of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Narmer, located at the bottom of the swamp. Other members of the expedition include the head of security Frank Valentino, technician Cory Landau, archaeologist Tina Romero, and mechanic Frank Kowinsky. Also accompanying the expedition is Rush's wife Jennifer, who has been maintaining a special connection to "the other side" after a near-death experience where she technically died in a car crash, but was revived by her husband. Rush uses his special method of hypnosis to put Jennifer into a lucid state through which they can communicate with the spirits within the tomb below them, which they believe to be that of Narmer himself. The base of operations is a massive group of canvas-covered outposts floating in the middle of the Sudd, simply referred to as "The Station."

Once they finally manage to create a passageway down to the tomb entrance—nicknamed the Umbilical Cord—they slowly begin excavation through the first two chambers, known as the Gates, with the Third Gate containing the tomb of Narmer himself, while the first two Gates contain rooms full of treasure. However, when Romero studies the mummified remains within the Third Gate, she realizes that the remains are of a female body. Logan similarly draws a conclusion based on the mannerisms Jennifer displayed whenever possessed by the spirit, and deduces that it has to be a female spirit inhabiting her during the sessions, not that of a man. Thus, they realize that Narmer's queen, Niethotep, must have killed Narmer by poisoning him and taking his place in the tomb.

Shortly after this discovery, Jennifer is fully possessed by the spirit of Niethotep once more, which then sabotages the ventilation system on the base and starts a fire in the engine room. She then takes two cylinders of nitroglycerin and uses one to damage the Umbilical Cord, killing Kowinsky, while holding the second one in her hand to keep everyone at bay. Valentino orders an evacuation of the Station, with most personnel taking as much treasure with them as possible, and escapes in one of the rafts along with Stone, Romero, and Landau. Logan and Rush stay behind to try to bring back Jennifer Rush and cast out the evil spirit of Niethotep, but they are unsuccessful in doing so; Niethotep throws the final canister of nitroglycerin down between her and Rush, creating an explosion that kills both of them while narrowly sparing Logan. Logan grabs a handful of treasure and escapes on one of the final rafts before the base explodes and sinks into the Sudd.

A review by Anthony Schultz praised the introductory chapter, but felt the middle of the novel was disappointing, with too much fruitless investigation by Logan before the answers start finally being revealed toward the very end of the book. He also thought the characters were "flat and shallow", and even the better characters weren't fleshed out properly, with too many loose ends.[6]

The Forgotten Room (2015)

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Full Wolf Moon (2017)

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Chrysalis (2022)

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Collaborations with Douglas Preston

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References

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  1. ^ "Utopia". November 11, 2002.
  2. ^ "Child's 'Utopia' (2002) a thrilling debut". February 2021.
  3. ^ "Lincoln Child : Death Match : Utopia : Book Review". Archived from the original on 2016-08-01.
  4. ^ Child, Lincoln (2007). "24". Deep Storm. Anchor Books. pp. 175–80. ISBN 978-1-4000-9547-6.
  5. ^ The Third Gate by Lincoln Child. ISBN 0385531389.
  6. ^ Scultz, Anthony. Review: The Third Gate by Lincoln Child. July 24, 2012.
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