基本信息出版社：Forge Books
页码：432 页
出版日期：2005年11月
ISBN：0765311631
International Standard Book Number：0765311631
条形码：9780765311634
EAN：9780765311634
装帧：平装
正文语种：英语
丛书名：Otto Penzler Presents
内容简介 Otto Penzler and the Mystery Writers of America present Grandmaster by Warren Murphy and Molly Cochran, winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Paperback Original in 1985.
Two men, born on the same day on opposite sides of the world, driven to oppose each other--for only one man may be the Grandmaster.
Justin Gilead and Alexander Zharkov, two men driven by powerful forces they can neither understand nor deny--driven to fight each other in a battle for power that only one of them may win.
Gilead, a magnificent athlete, an American, a genius, and a spy. Zharkov, a master strategist, head of the feared secret service agency, Nichevo, a determined, ambitious man.
They first meet as ten-year-old chess prodigies-both lonely, both meaning to win, both born under the magical sign of the gold coiled serpent. They will come to know the uses of pleasure, the secrets of pain, the impact of evil turned upon itself. They will understand the deadly forces that grip the world in swift violence, sudden death. And they will finally know that only one man may be the Grandmaster.
Grandmaster is an extraordinary tale of spymasters and assassins, murder and intrigue played against a background of Far Eastern mysticism from Moscow to Washington, from Havana to Tibet.
作者简介 WARREN MURPHY's books and stories have sold fifty million copies worldwide and won a dozen national awards. He has created a number of book series, including the Trace series and the long-running satiric adventure, The Destroyer.
MOLLY COCHRAN has written more than twenty-five books, including The Temple Dogs, High Priest, The Hand of Lazarus, and World Without End.
媒体推荐 "A tour de force."--Philippe Van Rjndt, author of Samaritan on Grandmaster
文摘 Chapter One
The dock on Pihlaja Island was deserted, as it always was in Helsinki’s black early mornings. The patrolman yawned and checked the luminous face of his wristwatch. It was an hour before dawn. Just another ninety minutes and he would drag his chilled body home and bury it in the warmth of his wife.
He heard a faint scratching sound behind him and he wheeled, his right hand slapping down toward his heavy leather police holster, but then he relaxed as he saw a solitary wharf rat running down the middle of the wooden dock.
He smiled grimly, faintly embarrassed at his display of nerves. The punkkarit, the local hoodlums, had everybody frightened. Each day, the newspapers carried stories of their plundering raids, and all the members of the police’s tiny dock squad had been warned to be extra watchful while on duty. Moored ships could be a paradise for vandals and burglars.
The patrolman’s footfalls echoed heavily along the bleak wharf. His breath blew out in clouds. Soon all the harbors in the Gulf of Finland would be closed with the first ice. In the distance a sleeping tanker sent tubes of yellow light over the black gulf. Nearer, tied up to the condemned section of wharf where the policeman walked, another vessel rocked silently on the water. It was a fishing boat, sizable but ancient, a black, empty hulk without even an identifying name on its transom. He walked toward it. The boat was obviously abandoned, although he had never seen it before.
Suddenly, behind him, the numberless rats housed in the decayed pier house set up an indignant chatter and scattered in all directions. The policeman turned toward the source of the noise, a thin line of sweat rising across his forehead. Punkkarit? Here? He pulled his night stick out of his belt as he approached the low stone building.
But it wasn’t the kids with their Mohawk haircuts and snapping switchblades. He cursed softly a
……