EXCLUSIVE ‘CLUES’ NEWS: We welcome a very special guest blogger to share some exciting news about The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers series, no other than New York Times bestselling author Peter Lerangis, who wrote Book 3: The Sword Thief, Book 7: The Viper’s Nest, and co-authored Book 11: Vespers Rising. Take it away, Peter!

We’re baaack!  But you knew that already.  Surely you’ve already seen/read/devoured/gaped-in-awe-at-the-cover-of The Medusa Plot, Gordon Korman’s nail-biting first book of The 39 Clues: Cahills Vs. Vespers series which was released in August.  If you haven’t, do it now. I dare you to read it in one sitting. And hang on to your hat, Jude Watson’s extraordinary Book 2: A King’s Ransom comes out on December 6^th.

As the diabolical Vespers have raised the stakes by kidnapping Cahills and forcing Dan and Amy into an impossible search for a deadly secret, so too has our new series upped the ante for writers. I am here today to reveal, for the first time, some exclusive news about my entry in The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers series, Book 3!

• Its title is The Dead of Night (and no, I can’t tell you why or I’d have to … you know)
• Its publication date is March 6, 2012
• The cover looks like this:

For The Dead of Night, I’ve plunged into historical research with a vengeance, taking the adventure to some jaw-dropping locales you may never have heard of but will want to put on your bucket list — and involving a revolutionary leader who was one of history’s great geniuses and who died with a 500-year-old secret.  Not to mention some unusual character twists you will not see coming.

Can you guess which historical figure I wrote about in Book 3, a great leader who was also a revolutionary scientist? (Hint: the cover will guide you.) Which historical figure would you like to see in The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers series?