The New York Time s bestselling author of Ancients and Leviathan returns with another adrenaline rush—the latest thriller in the Event Group Series Twenty thousand years ago, when man crossed the land bridge to North America, creatures called They Who Follow made the great trek as well. But once in the new continent, the giant beasts disappeared, whether into hiding or extinction, no one knew. Centuries later, a battered journal—the only evidence left from the night of the Romanovs’ execution—turns up in a rare bookstore. As the U.S. and Russians vie for the truth, and the lost Romanov treasure, they collide with a prehistoric predator thought long-extinct. It’s up to the Event Group to lay to rest the legends. On an expedition into the wilds of British Columbia, Colonel Jack Collins and his team make a horrifying discovery in the continent’s last deep wilderness, where men have been vanishing for centuries. Colonel Jack Collins and the Event Group search for a lost Russian treasure in Golemon's latest thriller. A rare diamond and a battered journal launch a quest to uncover secrets about the Romanov dynasty. When Russian assassins kidnap Collins' sister, the colonel and his team must ramp up quickly, as the missing treasure is the key to saving her life. The group ends up in Northern Canada, where they must enter a cave network believed by locals to be home to legendary creatures called They Who Follow. These monsters are said to devour human flesh; no one has ever survived a journey into their caves. Golemon combines his typical action-adventure fare with more thriller elements this time, and he focuses more on the personal stakes of his characters. With or without enhancements to his basic formula, Golemon knows how to make readers turn the pages, and Primeval will only further enhance his reputation. --Jeff Ayers David L. Golemon is the author of the Event Group Thrillers, including Event , Ancients , and Leviathan . Legend , the second book in the series, was nominated for a RITA award for paranormal fiction. Golemon learned an early love of reading from his father, who told him that the written word, unlike other forms, allows readers to use their own minds, the greatest special effects machines of all—an idea Golemon still believes. The only thing he loves more than writing is research, especially historical research, and he sees the subtext of his Event novels as being that understanding history allows us to create a better future. Golemon grew up in Chino, California, and now makes his home in New York. PROLOGUE THE CROSSING BERINGIA (EASTERN SIBERIA—WESTERN ALASKA LAND BRIDGE) 20,000 YEARS BCE The grass was tall and abundant. The men watched as the herd of giants grazed on the sweet, salt-laden growth close to the edges of the warm seas. The waters lapped at the north and south shores of the narrow spit of land as it traveled eastward toward the new and unknown world where the sun was reborn each day. The land was widening as it traveled east, expanding into a vast plain of tall grass. The giant wall of ice lay to the north and was clearly visible from the vantage point of the lowlands. Soon, that wall would start its slow move south as the ice would return once again to the world of man. The herd, far larger in stature and strength than the tusked, woolly creatures of their old home to the west, stood their ground, too ignorant to fear man even after one of their old males had succumbed to spear and stone. The elder of this nomadic tribe suddenly straightened from the day’s kill. The evening breeze had brought with it a scent he had come to know well since their trek began more than three months before from the steppes of Asia. It was They Who Follow—always within two miles of the band of forty men, women, and children, but never close enough to see or hear. The only evidence of their being near was the massive prints left by their alpha male: Prints so large, that two of his younger hunters could place their feet end to end into the eight-inch-deep depression. A strong, young hunter stood next to his grandfather and followed his gaze to the west, toward the home they had been forced to leave. There was nothing there for the people except starvation and ravenous creatures driven mad by the same predicament as they themselves. The younger male sniffed the air, but the telltale scent was gone, blown away by the shifting evening winds. The old man gestured for his grandson to continue the butchering and harvesting of the giant kill. His attention was still focused on the western horizon. He knew that the great man-beast was watching, waiting for the scavenger’s chance at their kill. The elder didn’t know for sure how many mouths the alpha male fed in its roving clan, but he knew that when he and his grandson backtracked, the carcasses of their kills were always stripped bare of meat, the marrow sucked from the bones. As the young hunters bundled the meat from the old bull into th