About Scratch One

SCRATCH ONE
Michael Crichton writing as John Lange
October 2013
ISBN: 978-1-78329-119-9
Cover art by Glen Orbik

To prevent an arms shipment from reaching the Middle East a terrorist group has been carrying out targeted assassinations in Egypt…Portugal…Denmark…France. In response, the United States sends one of its deadliest agents to take the killers down.

But when the agent is delayed in transit, lawyer Roger Carr gets mistaken for him. Now, with some of the world’s deadliest men after him, will he survive long enough to prove his identity?

MICHAEL CRICHTON
writing as John Lange
Long before he wrote JURASSIC PARK, before he scripted blockbuster movies like Twister, before he created the groundbreaking TV series ER, Michael Crichton was an honors student at Harvard Medical School—and writing paperback suspense novels on the side, under the top-secret pen name "John Lange." Lange wrote eight books between 1966 and 1972...and then vanished.

Until, 40 years after John Lange was born, Michael Crichton chose Hard Case Crime to bring him back, personally re-editing two Lange books, even writing new chapters for one of them. Now Hard Case Crime is proud to bring all of John Lange’s work back into print for the first time in decades—and the first time ever under Michael Crichton’s real name.

Acclaim for MICHAEL CRICHTON...

"Michael’s talent outscaled even his own dinosaurs of Jurassic Park. He was the greatest at blending science with big theatrical concepts...There is no one in the wings that will ever take his place."

— Steven Spielberg

"Intricate plotting and flawless pacing."

— Time

"Crichton keeps us guessing at every turn."

— Los Angeles Times

"Irresistibly suspenseful."

— New York Times

"A master storyteller."

— Sunday Telegraph (UK)

"One of the great storytellers of our age...What an amazing imagination."

— New York Newsday