Product Description

What lies ahead is already here...America is a difficult place to live below the surface. But Gabriel and Michael Corrigan are trying to do just that. Since childhood, the brothers have been shaped by the stories that their father has told them about the world in which they live. After his mysterious disappearance, they have been living 'off the grid' - that is, invisible to the intrusive surveillance networks that monitor our modern lives. But no-one is as invisible as they would like to believe. Nathan Boone, a mercenary, has been tasked to hunt down the brothers. The only person who stands between them and certain death is Maya, a tough young woman playing at leading a normal life. But her background is anything but normal. She has been trained to fight and survive at whatever cost. When she is summoned to protect the brothers, she must leave everything behind if she is to succeed...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6063 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 608 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Sometimes--not very often--a debut novel comes along which marks out a new writer as a consummate craftsman, seemingly fully formed with that first book. The Traveller is such a book; the mysterious John Twelve Hawks is such a writer (his publishers give no information about him, except that he ‘lives off the grid’).

The first thing that strikes the reader about this unusual novel is its ambitious panoply, which is as exuberantly international as one could wish, moving through a vividly realised Prague, London and Los Angeles. His characters are disparate but characterised with great individuality, such as the brothers Gabriel and Michael Corrigan, who have been brought up in Los Angeles under the mesmerising spell of their fey father; he appears to possess certain unnatural powers. After he dies a violent death, the brothers vanish off the grid of society, living in a clandestine underworld. Meanwhile, in London, Maya is a self-possessed young woman whose everyday life conceals a strange secret: she is the last of a dynasty whose responsibility is to protect those in the human race who are differently gifted. She is called to Prague by her sick father, and learns about Gabriel and Michael, whose lives are now in serious danger. In California, a desperate race against time begins: who will track down the brothers first--the protective Maya or the murderous Boone?

Readers tired of the parochial thriller that has held sway in Britain for so long will embrace this intoxicating (if outrageously unlikely) novel with open arms. True, a certain suspension of disbelief is required, but Twelve Hawks is the kind of writer who is able to persuade even the most sceptical among us. A remarkable debut.
--Barry Forshaw

New York Times
‘Page-turningly swift with a cliff-hanger ending…A cyber 1984’

Synopsis
What lies ahead is already here...America is a difficult place to live below the surface. But Gabriel and Michael Corrigan are trying to do just that. Since childhood, the brothers have been shaped by the stories that their father has told them about the world in which they live. After his mysterious disappearance, they have been living 'off the grid' - that is, invisible to the intrusive surveillance networks that monitor our modern lives. But no-one is as invisible as they would like to believe. Nathan Boone, a mercenary, has been tasked to hunt down the brothers. The only person who stands between them and certain death is Maya, a tough young woman playing at leading a normal life. But her background is anything but normal. She has been trained to fight and survive at whatever cost. When she is summoned to protect the brothers, she must leave everything behind if she is to succeed...

Customer Reviews

A Brilliant & Gripping Book
Supremely brilliant with a lot of real life truth about it too. I found it really hard to put this book down and I can't wait to read the next book in the series.

teenage kicks
I'd be very suprised if the author, that lives off the grid, isn't a hormoned fuelled, teenage cyber-geek.

The novel is a mixture of unoriginal ideas loosely taken from the matrix, 1984 and such like. However, it's so badly written and the plot so thin it amazes me how popular it has become.

If you want a mindless book for your hols then this should fit. Otherwise, at best it's a fair book.....for kids.

Best Fiction Story in 10 Yeras - Beats Davinci Hands Down
Wow! This is an amazing book. I read between 150 and 200 books a year and I must say that this is one of the best books I have read in a decade. It is like a cross between the Matrix and Blade Runner, or Dan Brown's Angel's and Demons and a Tom Clancy novel. Or like a little known author James Bryon Huggins, it has mystery, suspense and intrigue, weapons and people who know how to use them.
The main premise is that there is a war going on in this world, but it is a war that most are unaware of. Like all wars there are two sides, The Harlequin's and the Tabula or as they prefer to be called `The Brethren'. The Harlequin's are warriors committed to protecting the Travelers; Travelers are people who have the ability to send their life energy from their body and travel to other realms. They are lonely isolated people who live to serve. The travelers often become gurus or healers or prophets. The traveler's after returning from a different plane of existence return changed and their views of life challenge other people to look at their own lives and to seek something more. The Tabula on the other hand want to control the world. They want to have control over every person's life.
Michael and Gabriel Corrigan are brothers and believed to be the last descendants of travelers. Michael ends up with the Tabula and Gabriel with the Harlequin's. This becomes a battle between good and evil, and a battle between brothers, like Cain and Able of old, the brothers will war. Also of significance is their names, only three angels are named by name in the Bible, and the brothers each bare one of those three names.
The book is a literary treasure filled with religious and literary reference from around the world and across traditions. It is a book for book lovers who will be intrigued by finding all the reference, yet the story is strong enough to capture the imagination of even the most casual of readers.
I believe this is a book that anyone could enjoy, and I can only hope that the characters will return in a sequel to continue the story.