Good news for fans of historical fiction, on September 10, 2019, Andrew Gross’ next must-read thriller, The Fifth Column, hits bookstores.
Several years ago, it was well-documented when Gross switched genres, leaving behind the more traditional mystery and thriller-type stories to go back in time and follow a young operative who was tasked with infiltrating Auschwitz in order to rescue one of only two living scientists capable of creating the A-Bomb in The One Man (2016).
Aside from receiving one of the highest scores I’ve ever given out in a review, The One Man instantly proved that Gross was a force to be reckoned with in his new genre, a point he hammered home with The Saboteur (2017) and The Button Man (2018) over the last two years. Now, after just three books, Gross has shown to be one of the premier historical fiction novelists alive, making his next title, The Fifth Column, one of the most anticipated thrillers of 2019.
Check out the cover art and plot details below.
New York City, 1941: Charles Mossman has lost his job, his wife, and his prospects after a short stint in prison for a bar fight gone awry. The only bright spots in his life are the afternoons he spends with his daughter after school, picking her up from the nanny who watches her and delivering her home before his wife gets home from her factory job in the evenings.
But one day he meets the elderly Swiss couple living next door to his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Bauer, and something seems…not right about them. Maybe it’s the German they’re teaching his daughter, maybe it’s all of the strangers he sees going in and out of their apartment. Though they claim to be as distraught over Hitler’s actions in Europe as other Americans, he’s not sure he believes them, and soon, he is convinced that there’s more to these people than meets the eye. And he’s determined to find out what’s really going on.
What he finds could not only endanger his daughter but also all of New York City. As the shadow of war creeps closer to the States, one man has the ability to bring down a nest of Nazi spies doing Hitler’s work in America. Based on the true story of the Duquense Spy Ring, Gross’s once again delivers a tense, stirring thriller set against the backdrop of a nation about to go to war.
Andrew Gross is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of several novels, including No Way Back, Everything to Lose, and One Mile Under. He is also coauthor of five #1 New York Times bestsellers with James Patterson, including Judge & Jury and Lifeguard. His books have been translated into over 25 languages. He lives in Westchester County, New York, with his wife, Lynn. They have three children.
In a Q&A I did with Gross last year, he described his next book, which we now know is The Fifth Column, as “a bit of early Hitchcock meets Rosemary’s Baby.” If that doesn’t get you pumped up, I don’t know what will.
September is still a long ways off, but fans can (and should) pre-order Andrew Gross’ next thriller here, or anywhere else books are sold.
Praised as “one of today’s finest book reviewers” by New York Times bestselling author Gayle Lynds, Ryan Steck (“The Godfather of the thriller genre” — Ben Coes) has “quickly established himself as the authority on mysteries and thrillers” (Author A.J. Tata). Steck also works full-time as a freelance editor and pens a monthly thriller column for CrimeReads. For more information, be sure to follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He currently lives in Southwest Michigan with his wife and their six children.