THE LOST KEY (A Brit in the FBI #2) by Catherine Coulter & J.T. Ellison

"A thriller packed with nonstop action, real-life name-dropping and enough cutting-edge science to make you wonder how much of it could be true." – Kirkus Reviews

Freshly minted FBI agent Nicholas Drummond is barely out of his Quantico training when he and his partner, Mike Caine, are called to investigate a stabbing on Wall Street.  

Their investigation, however, yields more questions than answers. It quickly becomes clear that the victim, John Pearce, was more than the naval historian and antiquities dealer he appeared to be. What Drummond doesn’t know is that buying and selling rare books was Pearce’s cover, and that he had devoted his life to discovering the whereabouts of a missing World War I U-boat concealing a stash of gold bullion, and an unexpected surprise that only raises more questions. When Drummond and Caine find both of Pearce’s adult children have disappeared, the case assumes a new sense of urgency. The FBI agents know their best lead lies in the victim’s cryptic final words—“The key is in the lock.” But what key? What lock?

The search for Adam and Sophia Pearce takes them on an international manhunt, which threatens to run them afoul of an eccentric billionaire industrialist with his own plans not only for the lost gold, but the creation of a weapon unlike anything the world has ever seen.

Recognition

  • #3 on the New York Times Best Sellers List

  • one of Library Journal's Best Thrillers of 2014

  • Romantic Times Top Pick!

Audiobook Sample

In his first hour on the job in the New York field office, freshly minted FBI agent Nicholas Drummond and his partner, Mike Caine, are called to investigate a stabbing on Wall Street. They quickly learn that the victim, John Pearce, is more than the naval historian and antiquities dealer he appeared to be. He’s known as The Messenger, but that’s where the trail ends. Drummond and Caine must navigate their way through a labyrinth of deadly secrets dating back to an incredible theft during World War I. They’re up against a brilliant madman, Manfred Havelock, who will do anything to retrieve what’s been lost for nearly a century. Only one person, Pearce’s nineteen-year-old son, Adam, a gifted hacker, knows where to look. And he’s gone missing. John Pearce’s cryptic dying words—“The key is in the lock”—set into motion an eleventh-hour race to solve the riddle of what key, and what lock, with Havelock one step ahead of Drummond and Caine, leaving mayhem and death in his wake. They must find Adam and stop Havelock before he changes the world forever.

 

More Information

  • Publisher: G.P. Putnam & Sons

  • Original release date: September 30, 2014

  • Formats: Print, eBook, audiobook

  • Audiobook narrator: Renee Raudman & MacLeod Andrews

Praise


"A thriller packed with nonstop action, real-life name-dropping and enough cutting-edge science to make you wonder how much of it could be true.” 
– Kirkus Reviews


"Coulter and Ellison's suspenseful sequel to 2013's The Final Cut finds Nicholas Drummond, once a New Scotland Yard star, now an FBI agent based in New York City...The authors' sophisticated third-person narration smoothly propels the action to the exciting climax.”
– Publishers Weekly