The Crystal Shard

This new release of the classic R.A. Salvatore novel continues the classic tale of Salvatore’s signature dark elf character Drizzt Do’Urden. Although this was the first title actually published about Drizzt, it has now been placed in its proper chronological order as fourth in the series.

The Crystal Shard opens with a band of wizards traveling in a caravan near the spine of the world. The wizards trick an apprentice, Akar Kessel, into killing his wizard master with the promise of power and wizard hoods. Once the deed is complete the wizards abandon Akar leaving him to die in the frozen waste.

Nine-year-old Trisha McFarland strays from the path while she and her recently divorced mother and brother take a hike along a branch of the Appalachian Trail. Lost for days, wandering farther and farther astray, Trisha has only her portable radio for comfort. A huge fan of Tom Gordon, a Boston Red Sox relief pitcher, she listens to baseball games and fantasizes that her hero will save her. Nature isn't her only adversary, though - something dangerous may be tracking Trisha through the dark woods.

Feverish and sick, thin as bones from malnourishment, she nonetheless pushes on, moving deeper and deeper into the Maine-New Hampshire woods, deeper and deeper into the nightmarish landscape of the soul’s dark imagination.