The Escape Artist

by Brad Meltzer

Overview

Nola Brown, the U.S. Army's artist-in-residence—a painter and trained soldier—sees something nobody was supposed to see and earns a dangerous enemy in this novel as powerful as "a launched torpedo slashing through 400 pages of deep water before reaching impact...one of the best thrill rides ever" (David Baldacci).

Who is Nola Brown?

Nola is a mystery

Nola is trouble.

And Nola is supposed to be dead.

Her body was found on a plane that mysteriously fell from the sky as it left a secret military base in the Alaskan wilderness. Her commanding officer verifies she's dead. The US government confirms it. But Jim "Zig" Zigarowski has just found out the truth: Nola is still alive. And on the run.

Zig works at Dover Air Force Base, helping put to rest the bodies of those who die on top-secret missions. Nola was a childhood friend of Zig's daughter and someone who once saved his daughter's life. So when Zig realizes Nola is still alive, he's determined to find her. Yet as Zig digs into Nola's past, he learns that trouble follows Nola everywhere she goes.

Together, Nola and Zig will either reveal a sleight of hand being played at the highest levels of power or die trying to uncover the US Army's most mysterious secret—a centuries-old conspiracy that traces back through history to the greatest escape artist of all: Harry Houdini.

"Meltzer is a master and this is his best. Not since The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo have you seen a character like this. Get ready to meet Nola. If you've never tried Meltzer, this is the one." — Harlan Coben

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538747933
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	09/18/2018
Series:	Zig and Nola Series , #1
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	52,227
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Brad Meltzer is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Inner Circle, The Book of Fate, and seven other bestselling thrillers. In addition to his fiction, Brad is one of the only authors to ever have books on the bestseller list for nonfiction (History Decoded), advice (Heroes for My Son and Heroes for My Daughter), children's books (I Am Amelia Earhart and I Am Abraham Lincoln) and even graphic books (Justice League of America).

He is also the host of Brad Meltzer's Decoded on the History Channel, and Brad Meltzer's Lost History on H2. He currently lives in Florida. You can find much more about him at BradMeltzer.com. You can also see what he's doing right now at Facebook.com/BradMeltzer and on Twitter @bradmeltzer.

Hometown:

Florida

Date of Birth:

1970

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Education:

B.A., University of Michigan; J.D., Columbia University

Website:

http://www.bradmeltzer.com

Editorial Reviews

"This novel is like a launched torpedo slashing through 400 pages of deep water before reaching impact. Enjoy one of the best thriller rides ever."—David Baldacci

"THE ESCAPE ARTIST has a magic trick up its sleeve. Part Lisbeth Salander, part Homeland's Carrie Mathison. One of the most memorable characters I've read in years. Look out—Nola's coming. This is Meltzer in peak form."—Lisa Scottoline

"Highly entertaining... Meltzer keeps the action crackling... There's no escaping the solid storytelling of THE ESCAPE ARTIST."—Oline Cogdill, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

"THE ESCAPE ARTIST is Brad Meltzer's best book in years... Meltzer weaves a stellar tale of history, government-insider knowledge, and thrills... the rare novel that one wants to read fast while also needing to go slow to savor every word."—Jeff Ayers, Associated Press

"Brad Meltzer has done it again! THE ESCAPE ARTIST is an exciting, cutting-edge thriller you will not be able to put down. If you love twists, tension, and tons of amazing characters, treat yourself to this gripping tale by one of the absolute best in the business."—Brad Thor

"Meltzer is a master and this is his best. Not since The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo have you seen a character like this. Get ready to meet Nola. If you've never tried Meltzer, this is the one."—Harlan Coben

"THE ESCAPE ARTIST is a slingshot of a novel. Brad Meltzer expertly pulls it back and lets it go, propelling the unlikeliest of heroes forward in a high stakes, high tension thriller that never lets you catch your breath. My advice: Buckle up!"—Michael Connelly

"A throat-clenching masterpiece of suspense-and damned ingenious to boot. My jaw dropped once more—and so will yours."—James Rollins

"Stellar...With its remarkable plot and complex characters, this page-turner not only entertains but also provides a fascinating glimpse into American history."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Gripping... a true page-turner."—Library Journal (starred review)

"Meltzer has based his literary career on conspiracy-themed stories, and he's very good at them. In Nola and Zig, too, he's created two of his most compellingly fresh characters. Nola, in particular, represents a high point in the author's career: a strong, resourceful, mysterious female lead who could go toe-to-toe with Jack Reacher, Bob Lee Swagger, and the other guys. First of a new series, according to the publisher, and that's just fine."—Booklist

From the Publisher

★ 01/15/2018
Mortician Jim “Zig” Zigarowski, the hero of this stellar series launch from bestseller Meltzer (The Book of Lies), works the U.S. government’s most top-secret and high-profile cases at Dover Air Force base in present-day Delaware. Zig’s world changes when a military plane mysteriously crashes in the Alaskan wilderness and the body of soldier Nola Brown, who as a child saved his daughter from an explosion at a Girl Scout camp years before, arrives on his table. As Zig prepares the body, he discovers that the scars Nola sustained at camp are missing, and he becomes suspicious. When he finds a crumpled piece of paper in the woman’s stomach, a warning for Nola, his suspicions are confirmed: this isn’t Nola. Zig is determined to discover what happened to her and whether she’s safe. The closer he gets to the truth, the more dangerous it becomes. Soon he finds himself in the middle of Operation Bluebook, a secret government program that goes back to Harry Houdini. With its remarkable plot and complex characters, this page-turner not only entertains but also provides a fascinating glimpse into American history. Author tour. Agents: Jill Kneerim, Kneerim, Williams & Bloom Agency and Jenifer Rudolph Walsh, WME. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 02/01/2018
Jim "Zig" Zigarowski is a mortician at Dover Air Force Base, where he prepares the returning bodies of U.S. heroes so they can have proper burial, and thus providing closure for the families. Years earlier, a girl named Nola Brown saved his daughter from severe injury, and now her corpse arrives at Dover after a suspicious plane crash in Alaska that also killed other government operatives. Feeling grateful to Nola, Zig intercepts her body to prepare it himself. He quickly realizes the dead woman is not Nola and wonders about her true identity. This discovery sets Zig on a harrowing path of danger, subterfuge, and government secrets as he searches for Nola and tries to discover the secret that has made her a danger to the government she serves as the U.S. Army's artist-in-residence. VERDICT Weaving the past with the present and creating a conspiracy with connections to magician Harry Houdini, Meltzer's series launch is a gripping thriller that will not disappoint his many fans. A true page-turner. [See Prepub Alert, 9/25/17]—Sandra Knowles, South Carolina State Lib., Columbia

Library Journal

2017-12-07
An Army mortician teams up, sort of, with a military artist who just won't die to thwart an obscenely shape-shifting conspiracy.Everybody has some God-given talent. Jim Zigarowski's is to make the dead look presentable for the families who come to view their remains at the Dover Air Force Base. When the bombing of a military plane from Alaska kills all seven aboard, Zig's attention is drawn not to the headline victim—Librarian of Congress Nelson Rookstool, an old friend of President Orson Wallace—but to Sgt. Nola Brown, an Army artist-in-residence who years ago saved the life of 12-year-old Maggie Zigarowski, though she couldn't prevent Zig's daughter from dying scarcely a year later. Illegally grabbing the job of preparing Nola's remains from the mortician assigned to the case, Zig quickly discovers that the remains aren't Nola's after all. His joy that Nola is still alive is tempered by the sobering realization that an awful lot of people have conspired to cover up this happy news by signing off on her death. Inevitably, the living Nola returns, determined to get to the bottom of the bombing. By that time, veteran suspenser Meltzer (co-author: The House of Secrets, 2016, etc.) has begun a series of harrowing flashbacks to Nola's childhood and adolescence that firmly establish her as the most damaged heroine in the genre since Lisbeth Salander. Uncovering traces of a sinister scheme called Operation Bluebook, Zig and Nola work—often at cross-purposes, though not when they need to save each other's lives—through a web of corrupt procurers, creatively armed killers, and board-certified magicians to trace and neutralize Bluebook before its resourceful conspirators can kill Zig and finish the job they bungled on Nola.The same mixture as before: a sweeping, overplotted, overscaled account of high crimes, misdemeanors, and violent coverups and reprisals. But those flashbacks into the heroine's traumatic early years, although they seriously disrupt the momentum of the blood-and-thunder present-day plot, sting long after the details of that plot have faded.

Kirkus Reviews