New Thriller Over 30 Years in the Making

Naples, FL, October 22, 2007 --(PR.com)-- Aria Publishers announces James Houston Turner's latest thriller, The Identity Factor, has just been launched after taking the author over thirty years to write it. Already being compared to The DaVinci Code and The Bourne Identity (Apex Reviews, Blogcritics Magazine, "LA's the Place" online magazine), the controversial novel challenges the traditional view of the Mosaic authorship of Genesis. Citing comparative ancient Near-Eastern literary works such as "The Code of Hammurabi" and the "Epic of Gilgamesh," Turner says Genesis was not written by Moses, but in fact is a composite of more ancient documents.

"I knew I'd stumbled onto something significant," the Kansas-born, Australia-based novelist recalls about his discovery at the University of Houston Clear Lake, where he earned his Master’s Degree. "Excited at what I had found, I told some colleagues that I wanted to write a position paper. But they said, 'Why? Who cares?' After having spent a year writing a largely ignored thesis comparing human fossils, I knew they may be right. So I rather flippantly said that I should probably weave my discovery into a novel, that more people would read it. My colleagues agreed."

Years passed while Turner turned the idea over in his mind, adding thematic elements from world events, in particular the Middle East, which was the focus of his book. But it wasn't until one of his trips as a smuggler behind the old Iron Curtain that Turner began to seriously consider writing fiction. "I'd been shadowed by the KGB, organized secret midnight meetings with informants, located hidden mountain bunkers and investigated legends of forgotten tunnels buried beneath the cobblestones and bricks of some of Central Europe's most venerated cathedrals. It was pretty high-octane stuff for a guy like me with an active imagination." His first novel, The Search for the Sword of St Peter (1996) was a result of those experiences. Next came his acclaimed espionage thriller, The Second Thirteen (JB Books, Sydney, 1999), which saw him catch the attention of the prestigious William Morris Agency. By the summer of 2001, his agent in New York was submitting copies of The Identity Factor to editors in all the major publishing houses. Paramount Studios was expressing interest in the story.

Then came the horrific attack on the Twin Towers, and almost overnight, Turner and his Middle Eastern manuscript were dropped. "Months turned into years of non-interest,” he says, “and during that time, I was about the only one who kept believing in my story. It’s taken this long - over thirty years - for The Identity Factor to finally become a reality."

The Identity Factor opens in 1919 with archaeologist Sir Edmund George Clayton discovering an ancient tablet that duplicates a parallel passage in Genesis. Written by Ishmael, patriarch of the Arab nations, the tablet records the Promised Land being given by Abraham to Isaac and his descendants, the Jews. Clayton is then murdered and the tablet stolen, only to resurface in the hands of a collector in modern-day Cairo, where the CIA learns the phantom terrorist, Abu Nazer, plans to steal it. Because the tablet could detonate war between the Arabs and Jews over the ownership of Palestine, the CIA is understandably keen to identify and stop Abu Nazer. Headstrong rookie profiler, Zoë Gustaves, and charming Texas journalist, Rutherford Tyler, are hot on Abu Nazer's trail, but their lives are threatened by Nightingale, a covert operation protecting Abu Nazer from deep within the CIA. Turner peppers the story with wit and salts it with subtle themes of reconciliation and hope, thus creating a spicy, staccato-paced romantic thriller that has surprising relevance to current tensions in the Middle East.

The Identity Factor
ISBN 9780958666411
370 pages
$14.95
Available on Amazon.com
Author website: www.jameshoustonturner.com

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