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Brad Meltzer

Biography

Brad Meltzer

Brad Meltzer is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of THE LIGHTNING ROD, THE ESCAPE ARTIST and over 10 other bestselling thrillers, as well as the Ordinary People Change the World series. He is also the host of the History Channel TV shows "Brad Meltzer’s Decoded" and "Brad Meltzer’s Lost History," which he used to help find the missing 9/11 flag that the firefighters raised at Ground Zero.

Books by Brad Meltzer

by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch - History, Nonfiction

Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is often ranked among Americans’ most well-liked presidents. Yet what most Americans don’t know is that JFK’s historic presidency almost ended before it began --- at the hands of a disgruntled sociopathic loner armed with dynamite. On December 11, 1960, shortly after Kennedy’s election and before his inauguration, a retired postal worker named Richard Pavlick waited in his car --- a parked Buick --- on a quiet street in Palm Beach, Florida. Pavlick knew the president-elect’s schedule. He knew when Kennedy would leave his house. He knew where Kennedy was going. From there, Pavlick had a simple plan --- one that could’ve changed the course of history.

by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch - History, Nonfiction

In 1943, as the war against Nazi Germany raged abroad, President Franklin Roosevelt had a critical goal: a face-to-face sit-down with his allies Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill. This first-ever meeting of the Big Three in Tehran, Iran, would decide some of the most crucial strategic details of the war. Yet when the Nazis found out about the meeting, their own secret plan took shape --- an assassination plot that would’ve changed history. A true story filled with daring rescues, body doubles and political intrigue, THE NAZI CONSPIRACY details FDR’s pivotal meeting in Tehran and the deadly Nazi plot against the heads of state of the three major Allied powers who attended it.

by Brad Meltzer - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Archie Mint has led a charmed life. But when he’s killed while trying to stop a robbery in his own home, his family is shattered --- and then shocked when the other shoe drops. Mint has been hiding criminal secrets none of them could have imagined. While working on Mint’s body before his funeral, mortician “Zig” Zigarowski discovers something he was never meant to see. That telling detail leads him to Mint’s former top-secret military unit and his connection to artist Nola Brown. Following Nola’s trail, he uncovers one of the U.S. government’s most intensely guarded secrets --- an undisclosed military facility that holds the key to something far more sinister: a hidden group willing to compromise the very safety and security of America itself.

by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch - History, Nonfiction

Everyone knows the story of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, but few are aware of the original conspiracy to kill him four years earlier in 1861, literally on his way to Washington, D.C., for his first inauguration. The conspirators were part of a pro-Southern secret society that didn’t want an antislavery President in the White House. They planned an elaborate scheme to assassinate the brand new President in Baltimore as Lincoln’s inauguration train passed through en route to the Capitol. The plot was investigated by famed detective Allan Pinkerton, who infiltrated the group with undercover agents. Had the assassination succeeded, there would have been no Lincoln presidency, and the course of the Civil War and American history would have been forever altered.

by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch - History, Nonfiction

In 1776, an elite group of soldiers were handpicked to serve as George Washington’s bodyguards. Washington trusted them. But unbeknownst to him, some of them were part of a treasonous plan. In the months leading up to the Revolutionary War, these traitorous soldiers, along with the Governor of New York, William Tryon, and Mayor David Mathews, launched a deadly plot against the most important member of the military: George Washington himself. This is the story of the secret plot and how it was revealed. It is a story of leaders, liars, counterfeiters and jailhouse confessors. It also shows just how hard the battle was for Washington and how close America was to losing the Revolutionary War.

by Brad Meltzer - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Her body was found on a plane that mysteriously fell from the sky as it left a secret military base in the Alaskan wilderness. Her commanding officer verifies she's dead. The US government confirms it. But Jim "Zig" Zigarowski has just found out the truth: Nola is still alive. And on the run. Zig works at Dover Air Force Base, helping put to rest the bodies of those who die on top-secret missions. Nola was a childhood friend of Zig's daughter and someone who once saved his daughter's life. So when Zig realizes Nola is still alive, he's determined to find her. Yet as Zig digs into Nola's past, he learns that trouble follows Nola everywhere she goes.

by Brad Meltzer and Tod Goldberg - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Hazel Nash wakes up in a hospital and is told she's been in a car accident that killed her father and injured her brother. But she can't remember any of it, because of her own traumatic brain injury. Then a man from the FBI shows up, asking questions about her dad --- and about his connection to the corpse of a man found with an object stuffed into his chest: a priceless book that belonged to Benedict Arnold. Trying to put together the puzzle pieces of her past and present, Hazel needs to figure out who killed this man --- and how the book wound up in his chest.

by Brad Meltzer - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

A young staffer with the National Archives in Washington, D.C., Beecher White is also a member of the Culper Ring, a 200-year-old secret society founded by George Washington and charged with protecting the Presidency. The alarming discovery of a buried arm has the President's team in a rightful panic. Who buried the arm? How did they get past White House security? And most important: What's the message hidden in the arm's closed fist? Indeed, the puzzle inside has a clear intended recipient, and it isn't the President. It's Beecher himself.

Edited by Brad Meltzer - Anthology, Fiction, Mystery, Short Stories

With this anthology, bestselling author Brad Meltzer introduces 21 original stories from today's most prominent mystery writers. From the foothills of Mount Fuji to Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp, from a physics laboratory in wartime Leipzig to an unusual fitness club in Boca Raton, these sometimes terrifying, sometimes funny, and always suspenseful tales will keep you riveted to the page.

by Brad Meltzer - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

There have been more than two-dozen assassination attempts on US Presidents, but only four have been successful...for now. Beecher White discovers a killer in Washington, D.C. who is meticulously recreating the crimes of these four men. During his investigation, he learns that over the course of 100 years, all four assassins were secretly working together. And Beecher is about to come face-to-face with the fifth one.

by Brad Meltzer - Nonfiction, Parenting

In this companion to HEROES FOR MY SON, Brad Meltzer brings together the stories of 55 remarkable individuals, from intellectual explorers such as Marie Curie, Sally Ride and Jane Goodall to cultural champions like Billie Jean King; from implacable public figures such as Rosa Parks and Winston Churchill to artistic icons like Leonardo da Vinci and Stevie Wonder; and beyond.