The Gilgamesh

Jack Kamping had one morning of peace on the island where his friends died. Then the seaplane came.

General Skyler doesn't want Jack dead. He wants his blood.

Four hundred feet under the Nevada desert, there is a dome built to make a captive animal believe it has sky. What lives in it has never been controlled. Skyler thinks a man with alien DNA might manage it.

Jack counts alarm panels and looks for a way out. Above him, Kim Holland and two strangers are converging on a desert town called Rachel, none of them knowing there is an explosive charge implanted beside the creature's heart.

He was told he'd be free in a week. He was told a lot of things.

Jerry Leake is the author of ten books of fiction and nine books on rhythm and percussion. His fiction ranges across thrillers, dark fantasy, and literary suspense - the Jack's Alive trilogy, the Twin Crossing duology, Lethal Injection, The Soul Searcher, Sand and Ceremony - and often draws on the places and people he knows firsthand. He has also written cartoon and comic collections - Far Fetched, Dogbreath - and books for younger readers. He is a Professor of World Percussion at Berklee College of Music and a faculty member at the New England Conservatory, where he has taught for more than thirty years. His percussion texts on North Indian, South Indian, West African, and Afro-Cuban rhythm are used by students and players worldwide. He has studied and performed in Ghana and India, and is a founding member of Natraj and Club d'Elf, leads the world-rock fusion octet Cubist, and has long played with the Agbekor Drum and Dance Society.