The Blood Promise

Hugo Marston must figure out what lies hidden inside an old sailor's chest before a 200-year-old blood promise is revealed and claims another life.

In post-Revolution Paris, an old man signs a letter in blood, then hides it in a secret compartment in a sailor's chest. A messenger arrives to transport the chest and its hidden contents, but then the plague strikes and an untimely death changes history.

Two hundred years later, Hugo Marston is safeguarding an unpredictable but popular senator who is in Paris negotiating a France/U.S. dispute. The talks, held at a country chateau, collapse when the senator accuses someone of breaking into his room. Theft becomes the least of Hugo's concerns when someone discovers the secrets hidden deep inside the sailor's chest, and decides that the power and money they promise are worth killing for.

But when the darkness of history is unleashed, even the most ruthless and cunning are powerless to control it.

Mark Pryor (Austin, TX) is the author of The Bookseller and The Crypt Thief, the first two Hugo Marston novels, and the true-crime book As She Lay Sleeping. An assistant district attorney with the Travis County District Attorney’s Office, in Austin, Texas, he is the creator of the true-crime blog DAConfidential. He has appeared on CBS News’s 48 Hours and Discovery Channel’s Discovery ID: Cold Blood. Visit him online at www.markpryorbooks.com, www.facebook.com/pages/Mark-Pryor-Author, and http://DAConfidential.com.