Nemesis »

PROFESSOR BILL NAPIER is a career scientist, trained in Scotland, with a specialty in astronomy. Assessing the celestial hazard due to comets and asteroids has been Bill Napier's main research interest throughout his career. He was one of the first astronomers to recognize that the Earth is at risk from its interplanetary and Galactic environments, and to put forward the controversial proposition that celestial bombardments may even have been responsible for catastrophe in historical times. He is also a founding member of Spaceguard UK, part of an international organization concerned with the risk from comet and asteroid impacts on the Earth. He lives with his wife in Ireland.

THE CODE BURIED IN A CENTURIES-OLD MANUSCRIPT…

From a remote Scottish mountain, Dr. Oliver Webb—one of the world's great physicists—is whisked away by a military helicopter and routed to the Mexican border. Along with the leading men of physics and one sexy atom smasher, Webb is given an impossible task: identify the asteroid—codename Nemesis—that is on course to collide with and destroy America. They have five days to stop it. If they can't, the President will retaliate first by ordering the U.S. military to pull the nuclear trigger...

IS THE ONLY SALVATION…

But when one of Webb's colleagues is found dead, he has every reason to suspect that there is more to Nemesis than he knows. Then, he makes a staggering discovery: That the secret to saving the world is hidden in a 17th Latin century manuscript that has gone mysteriously missing.

FOR THE SURVIVAL OF THE U.S.

An electrifying race against time, NEMESIS spans centuries and the globe in a white hot journey through physics, history, and geopolitics—and mankind's ultimate duel with the unknown.

"Incredible…extraordinary…a really terrific novel!"

—Jeff Long, New York Times bestselling author of The Descent on Splintered Icon

Publishers Weekly

Napier follows up his Da Vinci Code-esque Splintered Icon with a novel that mines Cold War Communist hysteria, of-the-moment natural disaster anxiety and, yes, centuries-old-secret-code mania for a winning thriller. In the near future, British physicist Dr. Oliver Webb is recruited for a top secret assignment. A reconstituted Soviet Union has concocted a brazen offensive against the free world, redirecting an asteroid, code name Nemesis, on a collision course with the United States. Webb and his colleagues have five days to locate Nemesis and conceive a plan to stop it before the United States will be forced into a preemptive nuclear strike against the Russians. As pressure to find the celestial needle in a haystack mounts, Webb becomes convinced that the secret to locating the asteroid lies in a manuscript written by a little-known Italian astronomer more than 400 years ago-a manuscript already procured by a murderous adversary. Meticulously researched-especially sobering are descriptions of the destruction an asteroid strike would wreak on humanity-Napier has delivered a thought-provoking and speculative novel, with plenty of twists to keep the pages turning. Fans of Michael Crichton will find a kindred spirit in Napier. (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.