The explosive conclusion to the best-selling Brilliance Trilogy. For 30 years humanity struggled to cope with the brilliants, the one percent of people born with remarkable gifts. For 30 years we tried to avoid a devastating civil war. We failed. The White House is a smoking ruin. Madison Square Garden is an internment camp. In Wyoming, an armed militia of thousands marches toward a final, apocalyptic battle. Nick Cooper has spent his life fighting for his children and his country. Now, as the world staggers on the edge of ruin, he must risk everything he loves to face his oldest enemy - a brilliant terrorist so driven by his ideals that he will sacrifice humanity's future to achieve them. From "one of our best storytellers" (Michael Connelly) comes the blistering conclusion to the acclaimed series that is a "forget-to-pick-up-milk, forget-to-water-the-plants, forget-to-eat total immersion experience" (Gillian Flynn).  

The brilliants changed everything. Since 1980, 1% of the world has been born with gifts we’d only dreamed of. The ability to sense a person’s most intimate secrets, or predict the stock market, or move virtually unseen. For thirty years the world has struggled with a growing divide between the exceptional...and the rest of us.Now a terrorist network led by brilliants has crippled three cities. Supermarket shelves stand empty. 911 calls go unanswered. Fanatics are burning people alive. Nick Cooper has always fought to make the world better for his children. As both a brilliant and an advisor to the president of the United States, he’s against everything the terrorists represent. But as America slides toward a devastating civil war, Cooper is forced to play a game he dares not lose—because his opponents have their own vision of a better world.And to reach it, they’re willing to burn this one down.From Marcus Sakey, “the master of the mindful page turner” (Gillian Flynn) and “one of our best storytellers” (Michael Connelly), Book Two of the Brilliance Saga is a relentless thrill ride that will change the way you look at your world—and the people around you.**

Marcus Sakey, 'the new reigning prince of crime fiction' (Chicago Tribune) is the most acclaimed new thriller writer in recent memory. In his next taut, propulsive novel, four friends from the old neighborhood have dreams of a better life. And they've worked hard for it. A bartender. A failing stock broker. A hotel doorman. A travel agent. In a world where CEOs steal millions while their employees worry about their next paycheck, where the few dollars any of them have saved are held hostage to the whims of billionaires a world away, the honest approach got these four nowhere. Now they've gone too far with a plan to change their situation and their world is falling apart. To save their own lives, they've had to take the lives of others. Tensions and rivalries they thought long buried are flaring to angry life. The clock is ticking on a situation they don't understand. As things unravel faster and faster, each of them will have to choose between saving everything they treasure and doing the right thing. And for four people pushed to the ragged edge, the only thing more dangerous than the men coming after them might be their best friends.

Danny Carter thought he was safe in his new life until his old one came looking for him. In the working-class Irish neighborhood of Chicago where he grew up, you were only as strong as the reputation you built. Danny and his best friend Evan built theirs robbing pawn shops and liquor stores, living the reckless lives that their blue-collar parents had strived so hard to avoid for them.

Jason Palmer loved being a soldier. But after returning home from Iraq with an “other than honorable” discharge, he’s finding rebuilding his life the toughest battle yet. Elena Cruz is a talented cop, the first woman to make Chicago ’s prestigious Gang Intelligence Unit. She’s ready for anything the job can throw at her. Until Jason’s brother, a prominent community activist, is murdered in front of his own son. Now, stalked by brutal men with a shadowy agenda, Jason and Elena must unravel a conspiracy stretching from the darkest alleys of the ghetto to the manicured lawns of the city’s power brokers. In a world where corruption and violence are simply the cost of doing business, two damaged people are all that stand between an innocent child – and the killers who will stop at nothing to find him.

A family, and the security to enjoy it: that’s all Tom and Anna Reed ever wanted. But years of infertility treatments, including four failed attempts at in-vitro fertilization, have left them with neither. The emotional and financial costs are straining their marriage and endangering their dreams. So when their downstairs tenant – a recluse whose promptly delivered cashier’s checks were barely keeping them afloat – dies in his sleep, the $400,000 they find stashed in his kitchen seems like fate. More than fate: a chance for everything they’ve dreamed of for so long. A fairy-tale ending. But Tom and Anna soon realize that fairy tales never come cheap. Because their tenant wasn’t a hermit who squirreled away his pennies. He was a criminal who double-crossed some of the most dangerous men in Chicago. Men who won’t stop until they get revenge, no matter where they find it.

What happens when you leave the war—but the war doesn’t leave you?Newly returned from Iraq, Nick is discovering that America feels like an alien land. So when an old squadmate asks him for help, he’s happy to return to a way of life he understands. You stand by your brothers-in-arms, no matter what.But as events spiral out of control, Nick is forced to question just how far he’s willing to go in the name of loyalty. Because sometimes you have to choose between saving your life—and saving your soul.Named one of the Best Short Stories of 2010 by the International Thriller Writers Organization and nominated for a Macavity Award, The Desert Here and the Desert Far Away is a haunting thrill-ride about friendship, betrayal, and the wounds our warriors bear.About the AuthorMarcus Sakey has worked as a landscaper, a theatrical carpenter, a 3-D animator, a woefully unprepared movie reviewer, a tutor, and a graphic designer who couldn’t draw. In 2007 his first novel, The Blade Itself, was published to wide critical acclaim—and thank God, because nothing else seemed to be working. His books have been nominated for more than a dozen awards, named to multiple Year’s Best lists, and translated into numerous languages. Three are currently in development as feature films. Marcus is also the host and writer of the acclaimed television show Hidden City on Travel Channel, for which he is routinely pepper-sprayed and attacked by dogs. To research his work, Marcus has shadowed gang cops, trained with snipers, toured the morgue, flown planes, rappelled with SWAT teams, hung out with spies, and learned to pick a dead bolt. He’s an excellent cook, a travel junkie, and a devotee of ridiculously spicy food. He also enjoys writing about himself in the third person.