Douglas Preston is a regular contributor to the New Yorker. Lincoln Child is a former book editor at St. Martin's Press and has published numerous short-story anthologies. Together they are the co-authors of a series of bestselling novels, including the Agent Pendergast adventures. After a childhood that is of interest only to himself, Lincoln Child majored in English. Discovering a fascination for words, and their habit of turning up in so many books, he made his way to New York intent on finding a job in publishing. Over the next several years, he clawed his way up the publishing hierarchy, becoming an editor at St. Martin's - with titles as diverse as The Notation of Western Music and Hitler's Rocket Sites - but focused primarily on popular fiction. Lincoln's own nascent interests in writing only came to fruition after he left publishing. He now lives in New Jersey with his wife and daughter. A dilettante by natural inclination, Lincoln's interests include: pre-1950s literature and poetry; post-1950s popular fiction; playing the piano, various MIDI instruments, and the 5-string banjo; English and American history; motorcycles; architecture; classical music, early jazz, blues, and R&B; exotic parrots; esoteric programming languages; mountain hiking; bow ties; Italian suits; fedoras; archaeology; and multiplayer deathmatching.