The escape artist

Nola Brown, a U.S. Army sergeant, dies in a plane crash; her body is taken to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where Jim Zig Zigarowski, an employee of the base's mortuary, is responsible for preparing her body for burial. But Jim knows Nola Brown, and he knows the woman on his gurney is not her. Determined to find out what's going on, Zig tracks Nola down to where she's hiding and learns that she is embroiled in a conspiracy whose exposure could threaten the very foundations of the American government. Nola and Zig have only one option if they want to stay alive: bust open the conspiracy. 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.--Pitt, David Copyright 2018 Booklist

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.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

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 © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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 victimLibrarian of Congress Nelson Rookstool, an old friend of President Orson Wallacebut 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 workoften at cross-purposes, though not when they need to save each other's livesthrough 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. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Nola Brown, a U.S. Army sergeant, dies in a plane crash; her body is taken to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where Jim "Zig" Zigarowski, an employee of the base's mortuary, is responsible for preparing her body for burial. But Jim knows Nola Brown, and he knows the woman on his gurney is not her. Determined to find out what's going on, Zig tracks Nola down to where she's hiding and learns that she is embroiled in a conspiracy whose exposure could threaten the very foundations of the American government. Nola and Zig have only one option if they want to stay alive: bust open the conspiracy. 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. Copyright 2018 Booklist Reviews.

No plot details, but Meltzer is a perennial New York Times best-selling author, and this book has a 200,000-copy first printing plus a seven- to ten-city tour.

Nola Brown is the U.S. Army's artist in residence, rushing in to capture battle details that later clarify what really happened, but now she's seen something she shouldn't have. With a 200,000-copy first printing and a seven- to ten-city tour.

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

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.)