“A frothy, swashbuckling tale of high adventure….Escapist fiction at its ultimate.” — Seattle Times “It has a plot as satisfying as an Indiana Jones film and offers enough historical knowledge to render the reader a fascinating raconteur on the topics of ancient Egypt and Napoleon Bonaparte.” — USA Today   A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author William Dietrich introduces readers to the globe-trotting American adventurer Ethan Gage in Napoleon’s Pyramids —an ingenious, swashbuckling yarn whose action-packed pages nearly turn themselves. The first book in Dietrich’s fabulously fun New York Times bestselling series, Napoleon’s Pyramids follows the irrepressible Gage—a brother in spirit to George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman—as he travels with Napoleon’s expedition across the burning Egyptian desert in an attempt to solve a 6,000 year old riddle with the help of a mysterious medallion. Here is superior adventure fiction in the spirit of Jack London, Robert Lewis Stevenson, and H. Rider Haggard, and fans of their acclaimed successors—James Rollins, David Liss, Steve Berry, Kate Mosse—will certainly want to get to know Ethan Gage.   Adult/High School–What if people didn't have to die…? For an individual…that would make him master of all other men. For armies, it would mean indestructibility. Dietrich takes an actual event, Napoleon's 1798 invasion of Egypt; creates an amiable protagonist in the person of American gambler/adventurer Ethan Gage; hatches a plot focused on the enduring mystery of the Egyptian pyramids; and scores with a kinetic tale that expertly combines entertainment with intelligence. Augmenting his poor pay with his luck at cards, Gage acquires an ancient gold medallion one Parisian evening. Intrigued by its indecipherable etchings, perforations, and two long arms, and suspicious of the interest expressed by Count Silano, a French-Italian aristocrat rumored to participate in the black arts, Gage keeps the artifact. This act unwittingly sets him on a perilous quest from Paris to the Egyptian desert, encountering Gypsies, Freemasons, spies, assassins, Bonaparte, land and sea battles, treachery, and love along the way. The final climactic scene within the Grand Pyramid of Giza is not to be missed, and the ending promises that Gage's adventures will continue. The Da Vinci Code comparisons may seem automatic, but similarities go only as far as seeking the solution to a historical puzzle. Dietrich's work is more cerebral while sacrificing neither suspense nor action; think Indiana Jones meets the Discovery Channel. Fans of historical fiction, action adventure, and thrillers will clamor for this one.– Dori DeSpain, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. The author of, among other thrillers, Hadrian's Wall (2004) and The Scourge of God (2005) takes us back to late-eighteenth-century Paris, where American Ethan Gage comes into possession of an ancient medallion and then, almost immediately, is implicated in a woman's murder. Later, he joins Napoleon's expedition into Egypt, where the Great Pyramids could provide the French dictator with the secrets of world conquest or spell certain disaster--for Napoleon and the rest of humanity. Rich in period detail and ancient mythology, this epic-scale thriller succeeds on the strength of its small moments: a conversation that illuminates the plot, a description that captures our imagination. It's of interest, too, to see Napoleon reimagined as an adventurer, a dreamer, and an intellectual. Incorporating some of the well-known speculation about the pyramids (the mathematical significance of the Giza pyramid's design, for example) but not taking it altogether seriously, the novel is a big, exciting romp that will keep high-concept thriller fans on the edge of their seats. David Pitt Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved “A thrilling trip to beauty, mystery, and fear . . . Dietrich is great at bringing these historical battles to life. . . . And he doesn’t neglect the thriller part of the historical thriller genre. We follow Gage as he faces down assassins, frees a band of slaves, sneaks through a sequestered harem at midnight, crawls through secret passageways in pyramids that no one has seen for millennia.” - Oregonian “Breezily paced, factually grounded, and colorfully written, Napoleon’s Pyramids offers much appeal to historical mystery fans.” - Mystery Scene “Fans of intelligent swashbuckling adventure will revel in the battle scenes and mathematical puzzles hidden in this story. It’s a grand escape.” - Rocky Mountain News “Attention to those of you who like thrillers to be high-concept, historical and swashbuckling!” - New York Daily News “A frothy, swashbuckling tale of high adventure in 18th-century Egypt . . . Napoleon’s Pyramids is escapist fiction at its ultimate.” - Seattle Times “A big, exciting romp that will