The Travelers by Chris Pavone is a pulse-racing international thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Expats and The Accident (available January 10, 2017).
Read this exclusive excerpt from The Travelers by Chris Pavone, and make sure you're signed in and comment below for a chance to win a copy of the novel!
It’s 3:00am. Do you know where your husband is?
Meet Will Rhodes: travel writer, recently married, barely solvent, his idealism rapidly giving way to disillusionment and the worry that he’s living the wrong life. Then one night, on assignment for the award-winning Travelers magazine in the wine region of Argentina, a beautiful woman makes him an offer he can’t refuse. Soon Will’s bad choices—and dark secrets—take him across Europe, from a chateau in Bordeaux to a midnight raid on a Paris mansion, from a dive bar in Dublin to a mega-yacht in the Mediterranean and an isolated cabin perched on the rugged cliffs of Iceland. As he’s drawn further into a tangled web of international intrigue, it becomes clear that nothing about Will Rhodes was ever ordinary, that the network of deception ensnaring him is part of an immense and deadly conspiracy with terrifying global implications—and that the people closest to him may pose the greatest threat of all.
It’s 3:00am. Your husband has just become a spy.
PROLOGUE
MENDOZA, ARGENTINA
The door flies open. Bright light floods into the dark room, framing the silhouette of a large man who stands there, unmoving.
“What?” Will demands, raising himself onto his elbows, squinting into the harsh light. “What’s going on?”
The man doesn’t answer.
“What do you want?”
The man remains in the doorway, saying nothing, a mute looming hulk. He surveys the hotel room, the disheveled bed, discarded clothing, burned-down candles, wine bottle and glasses.
“¿Qué quieres?” Will tries.
Will had been lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, worrying. But not about this, not about an intruder. Now Will’s mind is flooding with competing scenarios and their different levels of emergency: drunk hotel guest, confused night porter, hotel security, jealous boyfriend, burglar, murderer.
Will’s panic is rising, and his eyes flicker toward escape, the French doors that he opened just a few minutes ago, doors facing the vineyard that falls away from the hacienda, with the snowcapped peaks of the Andes in the distance, under the big fat moon. He pulls himself to a sitting position, uncomfortably aware of his bare chest. “Who are you?” he asks assertively, trying to project confidence. “Why are you here?”
The man nods, takes a step forward, and pulls the door closed behind him.
The room falls into the semidarkness of flickering candlelight and the bright blue LED glow of the clock, 2:50 a.m. Will’s eyes readjust while his heart races, his breath coming quick and shallow, fight or flight, or both. His imagination hops around the room, trying out different items as weapons, swinging the standing lamp, breaking the wine bottle. A fireplace tool—the poker—would be the best, but that’s on the far side of the room, on the other side of this trespasser, this indistinct peril.
“No,” the man breaks his silence. “Why are you here?”
The man’s hand finds a switch, a soft click and a harsh transformation, Will’s pupils contracting a sliver of a second too slowly. In the light, Will realizes that he has seen this man before. He can’t remember where, or when exactly, but it was sometime recent. This discovery feels more like a defeat than a victory, as if he has found out that he lost something.
“Who are you, Will Rhodes?”
The man’s English doesn’t have any trace of an accent, Argentine or otherwise. This is a big beefy American who’s continuing to walk toward the bed, toward Will, slowly, menacing. It takes a while; it’s a large room, luxuriously decorated and extravagantly linened, with superfluous furniture and wine-country knickknacks and signifiers of the Pampas—mounted horns, a cowhide rug. It’s a room designed to remind well-off guests of where they are, and why they’re here, when they could be anywhere. Will has stayed in many different versions of this room, all over the world, always on someone else’s tab.
“Are you robbing me?” Will inventories the valuables he might lose here, and it doesn’t amount to much.
“Kidnapping?” No one except the most ill-informed amateur would take the tremendous risk of kidnapping for the paltry rewards that could be traded for Will Rhodes. This guy doesn’t look like an ill-informed amateur.
The intruder finally arrives at the bedside, and reaches into his jacket. Will scoots away from whatever potential threat is being withdrawn from this man’s pocket, in the middle of the night, halfway across the globe from his home, from his wife, his life.
If Will had any doubts earlier, he doesn’t anymore: he’s now positive he made a terrible mistake tonight. The whole thing seemed too easy, too perfect. He’d been an idiot.
“Look,” the man says, extending his arm, holding something, a little flick of the wrist—here, take this—and the smartphone falls into Will’s palm. He glances at the screen, a still image, an indecipherable blur of faint light amid darkness, unrecognizable forms in an unidentifiable location.
“What’s this?”
“Hit Play.”
Will touches the touchscreen, and video-navigation buttons appear, the recently invented language we all now know. He hits the triangle.
A video begins to play: a naked woman straddling a man, her hips pistoning up and down, like an out-of-control oil derrick, a dangerous situation. Will watches for two seconds, just enough to figure out who it is in the poor-quality video, low light, an oblique angle, garbled audio. He touches his fingertip to the square button. The image is now frozen, the woman’s back arched, head thrown back, mouth open in ecstasy. Apparent ecstasy.
Of course.
Will isn’t entirely surprised that something bad is happening. But this particular end seems to be an excess of bad, disproportionate bad, unfair bad. Or maybe not. Maybe this—whatever this turns out to be—is exactly the appropriate level of bad.
His mind runs through a handful of options before he makes a decision that’s by necessity hasty. He considers trying to get on more clothes—“Hey, how about you let me get dressed?”—but clothed, he might look like a threat; wearing only pajama bottoms, he’s a victim, sympathetic to the guard he hopes to encounter. This new hotel takes security seriously, peace of mind for their intended mega-rich clientele, with round-the-clock rent-a-cops and a close relationship with the police.
Will extends his arm to return the phone, rolling his body toward the bedside.
Here we go.
When the man reaches to collect his device, Will hurls it across the room.
The intruder spins to watch the phone’s flight—crack—while Will springs up, heaves his body into this man, knocking him over, landing atop him, pajama’d legs astride the guy’s bulky torso, a punch to the face, and another, blood pouring from his nose.
Will hops up, barely feeling the engagement of his muscles, his bloodstream flooded with survival-preservation hormones. He flies through the parted curtains. He’s out on the moonlit lawn, barefoot and shirtless, sprinting through the cool dewy grass toward the glowing lights of the sprawling main house, toward the security guards and their weapons and their hotline to the federales, who at the very least will detain the intruder while Will has a chance to make a call or two, and now Will is feeling almost confident, halfway across—
The fist comes out of nowhere. Will stumbles backward a step before losing his feet entirely, his rear falling down and his feet flying up, and he thinks he can see a woman—the woman—standing over him, her arm finishing its follow-through of a right hook, just before the back of Will’s head slams into the ground, and everything goes black.
Reprinted from THE TRAVELERS Copyright © 2016 by Christopher Pavone. To be published by Broadway Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, on January 10.
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The Travelers Comment Sweepstakes: NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A purchase does not improve your chances of winning. Sweepstakes open to legal residents of 50 United States, D.C., and Canada (excluding Quebec), who are 18 years or older as of the date of entry. To enter, complete the “Post a Comment” entry at https://www.criminalelement.com/stories/2017/01/the-travelers-new-excerpt-chris-pavone-comment-sweepstakes beginning at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) January 9, 2017. Sweepstakes ends 1:59 p.m. ET January 16, 2017. Void outside the United States and Canada and where prohibited by law. Please see full details and official rules here. Sponsor: Macmillan, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010.
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Chris Pavone is the New York Times bestselling author of The Expats and The Accident. He is the winner of the Edgar and Anthony awards for best first novel. He was a book editor for nearly two decades and lives in New York City with his family.
This sounds like an exciting book! Thank you for the contest!!
Sounds exciting
I like the cover
When I saw the title, I thought it was to be about travelers/gypsies and that was a bit intriguing. After reading the excerpt, I’m even more excited to find that the actual story appears rather exciting!
Sounds like an exciting read!
Want!
sounds like a great book
Bad choices, bad choices!
Thanks for the chance to win this interesting book.
Count me in!!
looks like a fun one
Perfect for a great read on a cold Winter night read.
sounds amazing! really want to read this.
I would like this.
This looks like a great book!
My type of book
This sounds really good.
Please enter me in this sweepstakes.
Thanks —
Have really enjoyed Chris Pavone’s earlier books. Looking forward to this one!
Would like to read this one!
Sounds like this will be hard to put down!
Sounds different, I like different.
I’ve been meaning to read a Pavone novel since THE EXPATS. I sure would appreciate winning this one. If I do, I’ll review it, as I do all books I read, and post the review to various Internet sites, such as goodreads.com, librarything.com, amazon.com, and others.
This book has been for a while on my TBR. thanks for the chance to win a copy!
Thanks for the preview!
Sounds really exciting!
Love a great thriller!
Love a great thriller!
Looks like an exciting read.
Tense…keeps you guessing. Mysterious….keeps you wondering. Good extract from the book. Look forward to it!
I loved The Accident and The Expats, he is a great thriller author. I am looking forward to this one for sure!
Love that this action book involves travel to several different interesting places. I’m intrigued as to whether the large man who entered the room with the phone was there as a threat or there to warn against a threat. Would love to read more. Thank you!
Love that this action book involves travel to several different interesting places. I’m intrigued as to whether the large man who entered the room with the phone was there as a threat or there to warn against a threat. Would love to read more. Thank you!
Traveling mystery book- for free!
Looks good! Would love to win this.
Count me in.
I would love to read the book.
I have read all of Chris Pavone’s books, including this one. All are great reads!
Sounds very exciting. New author to me, can’t wait to read.
captivating and intriguing.
I would enjoy this novel. Thanks.
I would thoroughly enjoy reading this book. Thank you
spunds very intriguing. think I’d like to read.
Looks like you either got to travel extensively or did a huge amount of research for the venues of this book! Very interested in reading this.
Sounds intriguing!
“Travelers” by Chris Pavone would make my armchair traveling very interesting!!
Already has my pulse beating! Sounds exciting!!
Sounds exciting, thank you!
I want to travel! Yes!
win
Yes I want it!
Yes I want it!
I got chills just reading this excerpt. Can’t wait to read the whole thing.
I got chills just reading this excerpt. Can’t wait to read the whole thing.
Can’t wait to read this.
sounds great want to win
I love the travel aspect of this thriller as a travel writer becomes a spy. Oh yes I want this book.
Would love to win!
Love his earlier books. If this is half as good it will be a winner!
Love his earlier books. If this is half as good it will be a winner!
Love his earlier books. If this is half as good it will be a winner!
sounds great sign me up
win it I want
I want to read this. I hope I win.
I really like international thriller books. This sounds like a good one!
Sounds like a great book with plenty of action.
Thanks for the sweepstakes. I’m ready for a new direction in my reading.
Why or why did you leave us hanging just as things were getting interesting!
Why or why did you leave us hanging just as things were getting interesting!
I would love to read the rest of the book!
Looks like this one will be a lot of fun!
Sounds intriguing .
Sounds good to me!
I’ve been trying ti win a copy of this book since it first came out. Hope this is the big win for me.
This sounds like an interesting read, I would like to read this book.
interesting
Sounds like something I would like to read.
Looks like a fun read.
This sounds like really great read!!!
Definitely raised the hairs at the back of my neck! Delving into this story would be the only way to alleviate this.
This is just the kind of book I love!
This is for sure one of my must reads.
Sounds chilling, sign me up!
Can’t wait to read this, sounds great!
See above!
Looking forward to this!
Look forward to reading this book.
Thanks for sharing!
This sounds terrific! Would love to win.
thanks for the chance, looks like a good read
Right up my alley! Thanks for offering this sweepstakes.
Count me in, please!
Sign me up for this book! Wish me luck!
Sounds action packed.
Sounds exciting!! I’d love to check this out 🙂
Reads so far like it’s going to be action packed and suspense filled. I’m hyped.
This looks like a thrilling read. Can’t wait to read more. 🙂
an offer he can’t refuse and then your husband is a spy, love to read this
Wow! First rate action and now I need to find out who they all are and what happens next. Thanks for the opportunity to win a copy.
Sounds like an interesting book.
I do like the way this one starts!!
Definitely!
LOVE his books! Needs to shorten the time between releases.
I would love to win!
OMG. Please take me across Europe. I need the trip!
thank you for the chance to win, i love to read.
I love travel, and always enjoy stories that take me places, especially when you throw in some intrigue and questionable choices!
I would love to read & review this book!
International espionage, yes!
I am always looking for new thrillers to read, thanks
I am always looking for new thrillers to read, thanks
I want to win this to find out what happens, count me in.
It sounds like a good old fashion thriller.
Mystery, suspense, and international intrigue – what a terrific combo!
count me in please!
I would like to read the work of Chris Pavone.
Thanks so much for the chance 🙂
Sounds awesome – would love to read!~
Sounds awesome – would love to read!~
Would love this read for my husband.
Would love this read for my husband.
The Travelers: New Excerpt looks like an outstanding book. Thanks for throwing this Sweepstakes!
I loved The Expats, so I’m sure this book is just as good.
I loved The Expats, so I’m sure this book is just as good.
Sounds so interesting.
Good deal, count me in!
Thanks for the great giveaway!
It sounds like an interesting read. Thanks.
Looks like an exciting read!
I’ve been looking for a compelling read, and I think I’ve found it!
I alawys like ones that take place in an exotic region.
Read the excerpt and I am already hooked.
Looking forward to reading more… Thank you for the excerpt and the entry opportunity!
Would like to read.
I love this kind of book. It always keeps you reading and wanting more.
This sounds so good!