Art restorer, spy and assassin Gabriel Allon is poised to become the chief of Israel’s secret intelligence service. But on the eve of his promotion, events conspire to lure him into the field for one final operation. ISIS has detonated a massive bomb in the Marais district of Paris, and a desperate French government wants Gabriel to eliminate the man responsible before he can strike again.

2070-71. Nearly six decades after Step Day, a new society continues to evolve in the Long Earth. Now, a message has been received: “Join us.” The Next --- the hyper-intelligent post-humans --- realize that the missive contains instructions for kick-starting the development of an immense artificial intelligence known as The Machine. But to build this computer the size of an Earth continent, they must obtain help from the more populous and still industrious worlds of mankind. This concluding volume of the Long Earth series explores the greatest question of all: What is the meaning of life?

In the late 17th century, two penniless young Frenchmen, René Sel and Charles Duquet, arrive in New France. Bound to a feudal lord for three years in exchange for land, they become woodcutters --- barkskins. Sel suffers extraordinary hardship, oppressed by the forest he is charged with clearing. He is forced to marry a Mi’kmaw woman, and their descendants live trapped between two inimical cultures. But Duquet runs away, becomes a fur trader and sets up a timber business. Annie Proulx tells the stories of the descendants of Sel and Duquet over 300 years, the revenge of rivals, accidents, pestilence, Indian attacks and cultural annihilation.

Paul Madriani and Harry Hinds have a new client: Emma Brauer, a woman accused in the “mercy killing” of her aged father, Robert Brauer. Digging into Robert’s military history, Madriani discovers that other members of the Army unit Robert served with have recently died --- under similarly suspicious circumstances. When he finds that a box sent to Brauer shortly before he entered the hospital relates to a mysterious talisman that went missing at the end of World War II --- a feared Nazi relic known as the “Blood Flag” --- Madriani and Hinds realize they are in for the fight of their lives.

Elizabeth Jarrod is driven to despair by the disgusting rumors spreading online and bullying texts. When Heath finds her teenage daughter in the midst of an unsuccessful suicide attempt, she reaches out to her aunt Gwen and her friend, Anna Pigeon. Since Anna is about to start her new post as Acting Chief Ranger at Acadia National Park in Maine, the three will join her and stay at a house on the cliff of a small island near the park, Boar Island. But the stalker has followed them east. And Heath (a paraplegic) and Elizabeth aren't alone on the otherwise deserted island. At the same time, Anna has barely arrived at Acadia before a brutal murder is committed by a killer uncomfortably close to her.

Suddenly thrust into the role of primary caretaker for her family following the tragic death of her husband, Ellie Robbins is appointed to serve out his term as sheriff of their rural Tennessee mountain town. She has long proven she can handle herself. But becoming sheriff is altogether different, and the demands of the role are even more challenging when she is forced to combat society’s expectations for a woman. Soon enough, dark secrets come to light, and Ellie must grapple with small town superstitions and the tenuous ties she shares with a condemned killer as she carves out a place for herself in an uncertain future.

John Quincannon has been hired by the owner of the Golden State brewery to investigate the ''accidental'' death of the head brewmaster, who drowned in a vat of beer. John is certain he can catch his quarry, but his partner, Sabina Carpenter, is not sure she even wants to catch hers: Sherlock Holmes or, rather, the madman claiming his identity. A Mr. Roland W. Fairchild of Chicago claims the man is his first cousin, who is due to inherit a $3 million estate --- if Sabina can find him and if he can be proved sane.

Widower Jack Harris has resisted the dating scene ever since the shooting of his wife by a 15-year-old boy three years ago. An early morning run along the Hudson River changes that when he spots a woman in last night’s party dress, enjoying a champagne picnic alone and reading his favorite novel. Eager to help Jack find love again, his best friend posts a message on a popular website after he mentions the encounter. Days later, that same beautiful stranger responds and invites Jack to meet her in person at the waterfront. That’s when his world falls apart.

Adrift in Cambodia and eager to side-step a life of quiet desperation as a small-town teacher, 28-year-old Englishman Robert Grieve decides to go missing. As he crosses the border from Thailand, he tests the threshold of a new future. And on that first night, a small windfall precipitates a chain of events --- involving a bag of “jinxed” money, a suave American, a trunk full of heroin, a hustler taxi driver, and a rich doctor’s daughter --- that changes Robert’s life forever.

Bibi Blair is a fierce, funny, dauntless young woman --- whose doctor says she has one year to live. Her sudden recovery astonishes medical science. An enigmatic woman convinces Bibi that she escaped death so that she can save someone else. Someone named Ashley Bell. But save her from what? And who is Ashley Bell? Where is she? Bibi’s obsession with finding Ashley sends her on the run from threats both mystical and worldly, including a rich and charismatic cult leader with terrifying ambitions.