The author of the spine-tingling thrillers Days of Drums and Last Rights has written his most complex tale yet, that of an innocent caught in the vortex of international political intrigue. Powered by characters whose ambition and cunning make them intolerant of any threat to their conspiracies, Gatekeeper also features a labyrinthine stage -- from the chambers of the American embassy in Paris and the North African ghetto of Marseilles to the glittering avenues and back alleys of New York City. Hollis Fremont has recently arrived in Paris to begin her job as a "visa slave" at the American consulate. Her return to the City of Light forces her to revisit tragedy: the mysterious assassination of her parents by a sniper's bullets fifteen years earlier. Hollis, an unprepossessingly beautiful young woman, soon attracts the notice of Paul McGann, deputy chief of mission, whose ardent attention to Hollis is matched by his violent temper and calculating treatment of anyone who crosses his path. Hollis's involvement with McGann will accidentally reveal to her the elaborate and clandestine paragovernmental alliances colluding to create a new world order -- one in which certain high-level officials and unfortunate individuals, including Hollis herself, are set in the sights of a hired gun. This implacable killer is called the Handyman. His relentless, and anonymous, pursuit of Hollis sends her on an international flight. As she struggles to elude the Handyman and his colleagues, it becomes evident that she can trust no one, not even those whose confidences she holds most dear. From the opening scene in an assassin's hideout to the cataclysmic climax at the Statue of Liberty, Gatekeeper is electrifying. Like Mitch McDeere in The Firm, Hollis Fremont becomes snared in the carnage of a zero-sum game that is hopelessly beyond her control. In the face of murder, betrayal, and desperate ambition, her only weapon is her desire for vengeance and justice.