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The Wrecker
Cover of The Wrecker
The Wrecker
Detective Isaac Bell travels the early-twentieth-century American railways, driven by a sense of justice and a determination to stop a new mastermind reigning terror on a crucial express line in this #1 New York Times-bestselling series.

A year of financial panic and labor unrest, 1907 sees train wrecks, fires, and explosions sabotage the Southern Pacific Railroad’s Cascades express line. Desperate for help the railroad hires the fabled Van Dorn Detective Agency. Van Dorn’s best man, Isaac Bell, quickly discovers a mysterious saboteur haunting the hobo jungles of the West. Known only as the Wrecker, he recruits vulnerable accomplices from the down-and-out to attack the railroad, and then kills them afterward. The Wrecker traverses the vast spaces of the American West as if he had wings, striking wherever he pleases, causing untold damage and loss of human life. Who is he? What does he want? Is he a striker? An anarchist? A revolutionary determined to displace the “privileged few”? A criminal mastermind engineering some as yet unexplained scheme?
Whoever he is, whatever his motives, the Wrecker knows how to create maximum havoc, and Bell senses that he is far from done—that, in fact, the Wrecker is building up to a grand act unlike anything he has committed before. If Bell doesn’t stop him in time, more than a railroad could be at risk—it could be the future of the entire country.
Detective Isaac Bell travels the early-twentieth-century American railways, driven by a sense of justice and a determination to stop a new mastermind reigning terror on a crucial express line in this #1 New York Times-bestselling series.

A year of financial panic and labor unrest, 1907 sees train wrecks, fires, and explosions sabotage the Southern Pacific Railroad’s Cascades express line. Desperate for help the railroad hires the fabled Van Dorn Detective Agency. Van Dorn’s best man, Isaac Bell, quickly discovers a mysterious saboteur haunting the hobo jungles of the West. Known only as the Wrecker, he recruits vulnerable accomplices from the down-and-out to attack the railroad, and then kills them afterward. The Wrecker traverses the vast spaces of the American West as if he had wings, striking wherever he pleases, causing untold damage and loss of human life. Who is he? What does he want? Is he a striker? An anarchist? A revolutionary determined to displace the “privileged few”? A criminal mastermind engineering some as yet unexplained scheme?
Whoever he is, whatever his motives, the Wrecker knows how to create maximum havoc, and Bell senses that he is far from done—that, in fact, the Wrecker is building up to a grand act unlike anything he has committed before. If Bell doesn’t stop him in time, more than a railroad could be at risk—it could be the future of the entire country.
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  • Available:
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Levels-
  • ATOS:
    6.0
  • Lexile:
  • Interest Level:
    UG
  • Text Difficulty:
    4 - 5


Excerpts-
  • From the book

    Table of Contents

    Title Page

    Copyright Page

     

    UNFINISHED BUSINESS

     

    THE PROLETARIAT’S ARTILLERY

    Chapter 1

    Chapter 2

    Chapter 3

    Chapter 4

    Chapter 5

    Chapter 6

    Chapter 7

    Chapter 8

    Chapter 9

    Chapter 10

    Chapter 11

    Chapter 12

    Chapter 13

    Chapter 14

     

    THE FAVORED FEW

    Chapter 15

    Chapter 16

    Chapter 17

    Chapter 18

    Chapter 19

    Chapter 20

    Chapter 21

    Chapter 22

    Chapter 23

    Chapter 24

    Chapter 25

    Chapter 26

    Chapter 27

    Chapter 28

    Chapter 29

    Chapter 30

    Chapter 31

    Chapter 32

    Chapter 33

     

    THE BRIDGE

    Chapter 34

    Chapter 35

    Chapter 36

    Chapter 37

    Chapter 38

    Chapter 39

    Chapter 40

    Chapter 41

    Chapter 42

    Chapter 43

    Chapter 44

    Chapter 45

    Chapter 46

    Chapter 47

    Chapter 48

    Chapter 49

    Chapter 50

    Chapter 51

    Chapter 52

    Chapter 53

    Chapter 54

    Chapter 55

    Chapter 56

    Chapter 57

    Chapter 58

    Chapter 59

     

    UNFINISHED BUSINESS

    An Excerpt from THE ASSASSIN

    DIRK PITT® ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER

    Arctic Drift
    (WITH DIRK CUSSLER)

     

    Treasure of Khan
    (WITH DIRK CUSSLER)

     

    Black Wind
    (WITH DIRK CUSSLER)

     

    Trojan Odyssey
    Valhalla Rising
    Atlantis Found

     

    Flood Tide

     

    Shock Wave
    Inca Gold

    Sahara
    Dragon
    Treasure
    Cyclops
    Deep Six
    Pacific Vortex
    Night Probe
    Vixen 03
    Raise the Titanic!

     

    Iceberg
    The Mediterranean Caper

     

     

     

    KURT AUSTIN ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER

     

    WITH PAUL KEMPRECOS

     

     

    Medusa
    The Navigator
    Polar Shift
    Lost City

    White Death

     

    Fire Ice
    Blue Gold

     

     

    Serpent

    OREGON FILES ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER

     

     

    WITH JACK DU BRUL

     

    Corsair Skeleton Coast
    Plague Ship Dark Watch

    WITH CRAIG DIRGO

     

     

    Golden Buddha

     

    Sacred Stone

     

     

     

     

    FARGO ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER

     

    WITH GRANT BLACKWOOD

     

     

     

    Spartan Gold

     

     

     

    OTHER FICTION BY CLIVE CUSSLER

     

     

    The Chase

     

     

     

     

    NONFICTION BY CLIVE CUSSLER AND CRAIG DIRGO

     

     

    The Sea Hunters

    The Sea Hunters II

     

    Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed

    G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

     

     

     

    NEW YORK

    Published by the Penguin Group
    Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA •
    Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3,
    Canada (a...

Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    September 14, 2009
    Set in 1907, the rousing second thriller to feature detective Isaac Bell (after The Chase
    ) from bestseller Cussler and Scott pits Bell against “the Wrecker,” who's been destroying trains and railroad facilities around the country for no apparent reason. These horrific incidents are wreaking havoc on the plans of Osgood Hennessy, the Southern Pacific Railroad's president, who's constructing the massive Cascade Canyon Bridge in Oregon. If the project isn't completed by winter, Hennessy's bankers will withdraw financing and his company will be destroyed. As in the first book, the purposefully stilted writing style takes a little getting used to, but there's plenty of excitement to be had in a world where massive, fire-breathing trains fly along at speeds of up to 120 mph. While the Wrecker's identity is revealed early on and there's never any doubt that Isaac will get his man, readers will find many thrills and much diabolical cleverness along the way.

  • Library Journal

    October 15, 2009
    Following his refreshing and exciting foray into early 20th-century California with "The Chase", Cussler returns to the land of yesteryear. Someone is out to destroy a major railroad by wrecking trains, blowing up tunnels and bridges, and killing people. Railroad detective Isaac Bell is brought in to bring the Wrecker to justice. He is ably assisted by much of the same group who appeared in "The Chase". Unlike Cussler's other adventure novels (the "NUMA® Files" and Dirk Pitt series), which depend on over-the-top futuristic technology, this new book is limited by history and cannot extend reality too far, all of which makes the novel work. It doesn't hurt that Bell is a more realistic hero and not a superman, although he is very much capable of taking care of himself. VERDICT Richly enhanced with well-researched historical and technological details, Cussler's latest offers a welcome change of pace from the Dirk Pitt books. A very enjoyable romp. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 7/09.]Robert Conroy, Warren, MI

    Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

  • Booklist

    November 1, 2009
    Cussler, known primarily for his contemporary high-tech thrillers, steps back in timemore than a century, in factin this rousing sequel to The Chase (2007). Van Dorn Detective Agency operative Isaac Bell returns, this time to track down a clever saboteur whos been dubbed the Wrecker. Seems the Wrecker has it in for the Southern Pacific Company, and he will stop at nothing, including murder, to keep the company from putting through a new railway line between San Francisco and northern California. Isaac is a sharply drawn series lead, and the story, as befits a railroad-themed thriller, moves at a brisk clip. In addition, theres a very nice surprise in the final scenes. Readers who have sensed a certain been-there-done-that feeling in some of Cusslers recent novels will be pleased to find a new spark here. More Isaac Bell novels would be most welcome.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)

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