A spellbinding literary thriller about terror, war, greed, and the darkest secrets of the human soul, by the author of the million-copy bestseller, The Interpretation of Murder. September 16, 1920. Under a clear blue September sky, a quarter ton of explosives is detonated in a deadly attack on Wall Street. Fear comes to the streets of New York. Witnessing the blast are war veteran Stratham Younger, his friend James Littlemore of the New York Police Department, and beautiful French radiochemist Colette Rousseau. A series of inexplicable attacks on Colette, a secret buried in her past, and a mysterious trail of evidence lead Younger, Littlemore, and Rousseau on a thrilling international and psychological journey — from Paris to Prague, from the Vienna home of Dr Sigmund Freud to the corridors of power in Washington, DC, and ultimately to the hidden depths of our most savage instincts. As the seemingly disjointed pieces of Younger and Littlemore’s investigations come together, the two uncover the shocking truth about the bombing — a truth that threatens to shake their world to its foundations.
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Reviews
'Rubenfeld has taken this real-life mystery atrocity and peopled it with a rich cast of heroes and villains... a tapestry of intrigue, corruption, double-dealing and double standards on a grand scale. A must-read for conspiracy theorists.'
'This elegant thriller mixes real events from the first years of 20th century America with Rubenfeld's fictional heroes... Superbly evocative of American society in the era of Prohibition, it will thrill Rubenfeld's fans around the world.'
'Carefully researched and energetically told, THE DEATH INSTINCT is likely to be as popular as Rubenfeld's first novel.'
'A Buchanesque thriller'