Six minutes from now, one of us would be dead. None of us knew it was coming.

So says Wes Holloway, a young presidential aide, about the day he put Ron Boyle, the chief executive's oldest friend, into the presidents limousine. By the trips end, a crazed assassin would permanently disfigure Wes a kill Boyle. Now, eight years later, Boyle has been spotted alive. Trying to figure out what really happened takes Wes back into disturbing secrets buried in Freemason history, a decade-old presidential crossword puzzle, and a two-hundred-year old code invented by Thomas Jefferson that conceals secrets worth dying for.

Insider knowledge of everyday life in politics, rock-'em sock-'em action and conspiracy tales that vault into the realm of breathless improbability are Meltzer's signature strengths, and quarely in this tradition The Book of Fate is sure to please.