Justin Gilead: brilliant American superspy and chess prodigy

Alexander Zharkov: ruthless head of the secret Soviet agency

Proven masters of the sudden-death game of global espionage, born under the same ominous stars, they are forever locked in mortal opposition. When a gruesome series of killings of Americans in Moscow threatens to rock the command centers of both the Kremlin and White House, both men claim the bloody streets of Moscow as their own personal gameboard in a rematch to the death. But neither is aware that another opponent has entered the game ... an opponent so powerful he makes murder seem like child's play ...

Moving from the cloistered worlds of Tibetan monasteries to the tense corridors of paranoia in Washington and Moscow, this edge-of-the-seat thriller is a jolting tour of the deadly forces that grip the world - and the long-awaited continuation of the Grandmaster legend.

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In a darkened house not far from the place where Camelot may once have stood, a madman schemes, plotting toward the day when he will wrest the cup that men call the Holy Grail from the boy who is its guardian.

Arthur Blessing is no ordinary ten-year-old. The Grail is his by chance, this time, but the power to keep it--a power as ancient as time itself--is his by right.

Now he must stay alive--battling foul sorcery and indefatigable assassins--long enough to use that power.

"A fresh and exciting view of the Arthur legend." —Robert Jordan on Molly Cochran's The Forever King