Douglas Jerome Preston (born May 31, 1956) is an American journalist and author. Although he is best known for his thrillers in collaboration with Lincoln Child (including the Agent Pendergast series and Gideon Crew series), he has also written six solo novels, including the Wyman Ford series and a novel entitled Jennie, which was made into a movie by Disney. He has authored a half-dozen nonfiction books on science and exploration and writes occasionally for The New Yorker, Smithsonian, and other magazines.
From 1978 to 1985, Preston worked for the American Museum of Natural History as a writer, editor, and manager of publications. He served as managing editor for the journal Curator and was a columnist for Natural History magazine.[1] In 1985 he published a history of the museum, Dinosaurs In The Attic: An Excursion into the American Museum of Natural History, which chronicled the explorers and expeditions of the museum's early days. The editor of that book at St. Martin's Press was his future writing partner, Lincoln Child.[2] They soon collaborated on a thriller set in the museum titled Relic, published in 1995. It was subsequently made into a 1997 motion picture by Paramount Pictures starring Penelope Ann Miller, Tom Sizemore, and Linda Hunt.
In 1986, Preston moved to New Mexico and began to write full-time. Seeking an understanding of the first moment of contact between Europeans and Native Americans in America, he retraced on horseback Francisco Vásquez de Coronado's violent and unsuccessful search for the legendary Seven Cities of Gold. That thousand mile journey across the American Southwest resulted in the book Cities of Gold: A Journey Across the American Southwest. Since that time, Preston has undertaken many long horseback journeys retracing historic or prehistoric trails, for which he was inducted into the Long Riders' Guild.[3] He has also participated in expeditions in other parts of the world, including a journey deep into Khmer Rouge-held territory in the Cambodian jungle with a small army of soldiers, to become the first Westerner to visit a lost Angkor temple. He was the first person in 3,000 years to enter an ancient Egyptian burial chamber in a tomb known as KV5 in the Valley of the Kings.[4] Preston participated in an expedition that led to the discovery of an ancient city in an unexplored valley in the Mosquitia mountains of Eastern Honduras, which he chronicled in a nonfiction book, The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story.[5] On that expedition he and other expedition members contracted a potentially lethal tropical disease known as cutaneous leishmaniasis, for which he received treatment at the National Institutes of Health.[6] In 1989 and 1990 he taught nonfiction writing at Princeton University. He has been active in the International Thriller Writers organization.[7]
For his solo career, Preston's fictional debut was Jennie, a novel about a chimpanzee who is adopted by an American family. His next novel was The Codex, a treasure hunt novel with a style that was much closer to the thriller genre of his collaborations with Child. The Codex introduced the characters of Tom Broadbent and Sally Colorado. Tom and Sally return in Tyrannosaur Canyon, which also features the debut of Wyman Ford, an ex-CIA agent and (at the time) a monk-in-training. Following Tyrannosaur Canyon, Ford leaves the monastery where he is training, forms his own private investigation company, and replaces Broadbent as the main protagonist of Preston's solo works. Ford subsequently returns in Blasphemy, Impact, and The Kraken Project.
In May, 2011, Pomona College conferred on Preston the degree of Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa).[13] He is the recipient of writing awards in the United States and Europe.[14]
Preston has criticized the conduct of Italian prosecutor Giuliano Mignini[17] in the trial of American student Amanda Knox, one of three convicted, and eventually cleared,[18] of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia in 2007. In 2009, Preston argued on 48 Hours on CBS that the case against Knox was "based on lies, superstition, and crazy conspiracy theories".[19] In December 2009, after the verdict had been announced, he described his own interrogation by Mignini on Anderson Cooper 360° on CNN. Preston said of Mignini, "this is a very abusive prosecutor. He makes up theories. He's ... obsessed with satanic sex."[20] Preston published Trial By Fury: Internet Savagery and the Amanda Knox Case in 2013 as a Kindle Single eBook.
"Operation Thriller" USO Tour
In 2010, Preston participated in the first USO tour sponsored by the International Thriller Writers organization,[21] along with authors David Morrell, Steve Berry, Andy Harp, and James Rollins. After visiting with wounded soldiers and giving away books at National Navy Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the group spent over a week in Kuwait and Iraq, marking "the first time in the USO's 69-year history that authors visited a combat zone."[22] Of the experience, Preston said, "As always, we learn a great deal from all of the amazing and dedicated people we meet."[23]
Authors United
In 2014, during a disagreement over terms between Hachette Book Group and Amazon.com, Inc.,[24] Preston initiated an effort which became known as Authors United.[25] During the contract dispute, books by Hachette authors faced significant shipment delays, blocked availability, and reduced discounts on the Amazon website.[26] Frustrated with tactics he felt unjustly injured authors who were caught in the middle, Preston began garnering the support of like-minded authors from a variety of publishers. In the first open letter from Authors United, over 900 signatories urged Amazon to resolve the dispute and end the policy of sanctions, while calling on readers to contact CEO Jeff Bezos to express their support of authors.[27][28] Not long after, a second open letter, signed by over 1100 authors, was sent to Amazon's board of directors asking if they personally approved the policy of hindering the sale of certain books.[29]
Describing the motivation behind the campaign, Preston explained: "This is about Amazon's bullying tactics against authors. Every time they run into difficulty negotiating with a publisher, they target authors' books for selective retaliation. The authors who were first were from university presses and small presses... Amazon is going to be negotiating with publishers forever. Are they really going to target authors every time they run into a problem with a publisher?"[30]
The Lost City of the Monkey God expedition
In 2015, Preston took part in an expedition into the Mosquitia mountains of Honduras that penetrated one of the last scientifically unexplored areas on the surface of the earth. The expedition, led by Steve Elkins and sponsored by Benenson Productions,[31] the Honduran government, and National Geographic magazine, explored a previously unknown pre-Columbian city built by a mysterious civilization that had been influenced by the Maya, but was not Maya itself. The city was discovered in an area long rumored to contain a legendary "lost city" known as La Ciudad Blanca, the White City, or the Lost City of the Monkey God.[32] The extensive archaeological site, in a remote valley ringed by mountains, had been discovered in 2012 in an aerial overflight by a team using the powerful technology of lidar (light detection and ranging), able to map the terrain under dense, triple-canopy jungle.[33]
The 2015 expedition explored and mapped the city's plazas, pyramids, and temples. It also discovered a cache of stone sculptures at the base of the city's central earthen pyramid. When excavated in 2016 and 2017, the cache revealed over 500 sacred objects which appeared to have been ceremonially broken and left as an offering at the time the city was abandoned. Preston wrote about that discovery in his 2017 nonfiction book, The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story, which became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller.[34] Preston was one of many on the expedition who contracted an aggressive parasitic disease, called mucocutaneous leishmaniasis, in the lost city.[35]
Authors Guild
In 2019, he was elected President of the Authors Guild.[36] In his capacity as president of the Authors Guild, Preston criticized the Internet Archive's National Emergency Library programme, launched in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which he described as "as though they looted a bookstore and started handing away books to passersby."[37] Preston supported a lawsuit brought by publishers against the Internet Archive over the latter's collection of e-books.[38]
Relic is a 1995 novel by American authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and the first in the Special Agent Pendergast series. As a horror novel and techno-thriller, it comments on the possibilities inherent in genetic manipulation, and is critical of museums and their role both in society and in the scientific community. It is the basis of the film The Relic (1997).
Richard Preston is a writer for The New Yorker and bestselling author who has written books about infectious disease, bioterrorism, redwoods and other subjects, as well as fiction.
Lincoln Child is an American author of techno-thriller and horror novels. Though he is most well known for his collaborations with Douglas Preston, he has also written eight solo novels, including the Jeremy Logan series. Over twenty of the collaborative novels and most of his solo novels have become New York Times bestsellers, some reaching the #1 position. Child and Preston's first novel together, Relic, was adapted into a feature film. Their books are notable for their thorough research and scientific accuracy.
Brimstone is a thriller novel written by American authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and published on August 3, 2004, by Warner Books. This is the fifth installment in the Special Agent Pendergast series and the first novel in the Diogenes trilogy that also includes Dance of Death (2005) and The Book of the Dead (2006).
The Cabinet of Curiosities is a thriller novel by American writers Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, released on June 3, 2002 by Grand Central Publishing. This is the third installment in the Special Agent Pendergast series.
The Book of the Dead is a novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child published on July 1, 2007, by Warner Books. This is the seventh book in the Special Agent Pendergast series. Also, it is the third and final installment to the trilogy concentrating on Pendergast and his relationship with Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta in their pursuit to stop Pendergast's brother, Diogenes.
Still Life with Crows is a thriller novel by American authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, released on July 1, 2003 by Grand Central Publishing. It is the fourth novel to feature FBI Special Agent Pendergast as protagonist.
Thunderhead is a thriller novel by American writers Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The book was published on July 1, 1999 by Grand Central Publishing.
The Ice Limit is a techno-thriller novel by American authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The book was published on July 18, 2000 by Grand Central Publishing.
Aloysius Xingu Leng Pendergast is a fictional character appearing in novels by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. He first appeared as a supporting character in their first novel, Relic (1995), and in its 1997 sequel Reliquary, before assuming the protagonist's role in the 2002 novel The Cabinet of Curiosities.
Mario Spezi was an Italian journalist, author, illustrator, and caricaturist. He wrote the non-fiction true crime books Dolci Colline di Sangue (2006) and Il Mostro di Firenze (1983). He was a co-author in the book The Monster of Florence A True Story (2008) with American author Douglas Preston. Additionally, he was credited by Preston for providing details used in the novel Brimstone.
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon is a non-fiction book by American author David Grann. Published in 2009, the book recounts the activities of the British explorer Percy Fawcett who, in 1925, disappeared with his son in the Amazon rainforest while looking for the ancient "Lost City of Z". In the book, Grann recounts his own journey into the Amazon, by which he discovered new evidence about how Fawcett may have died.
Gideon's Sword is a novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. It was released on February 22, 2011 by Grand Central Publishing. The book is the first installment in the Gideon Crew series.
Gideon's Corpse is a thriller novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The book was released on January 10, 2012, by Grand Central Publishing. The book centers around Gideon Crew and is a sequel to Gideon's Sword. The plot focuses on a nuclear scare, the federal reaction, and Gideon's attempts to unravel the mystery.
Cold Vengeance is a thriller novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. It was released on August 2, 2011 by Grand Central Publishing. This is the eleventh installment in the Special Agent Pendergast series and also the second novel in the Helen trilogy. The preceding novel is Fever Dream.
Two Graves is a thriller novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. It was released on December 11, 2012 by Grand Central Publishing. This is the twelfth book in the Special Agent Pendergast series and also the third novel in the Helen trilogy. The preceding novel is Cold Vengeance.
Crimson Shore is a thriller novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The book was released on November 10, 2015, by Grand Central Publishing. This is the fifteenth book in the Special Agent Pendergast series.
The Obsidian Chamber is a thriller novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The book was released on October 18, 2016 by Grand Central Publishing and is the sixteenth book in the Special Agent Pendergast series.
Beyond The Ice Limit is a techno-thriller novel by American authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The book is a sequel to their 2000 book The Ice Limit and was published on May 17, 2016 by Grand Central Publishing. It is the fourth book in Preston and Child's Gideon Crew series.
City of Endless Night is a thriller novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The book was released on January 16, 2018, by Grand Central Publishing. This is the seventeenth book in the Special Agent Pendergast series.
↑ Douglas Preston (1992). Cities of Gold: A journey across the American southwest in pursuit of Coronado. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN0-671-73759-7.
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