LOS ANGELES -- "Ludlumesque" novelist James Houston Turner's acclaimed political thriller, The Identity Factor, was honored with its fourth Finalist Award by USA Book News in their prestigious 2008 Best Books Awards. "I was thrilled to have my novel receive such consistently high recognition against such tough competition," says Turner, a Kansas-born novelist who lives in Adelaide, South Australia. "The competition was extremely tough. Books from small publishers go up against big name authors from the major New York houses, so this is an awesome accomplishment and I'm definitely celebrating my victory."

Jeff Keen, President and CEO of JPX Media, parent company of USABookNews.com, said the 2008 Best Books Awards yielded an unprecedented number of entries, which were then narrowed to a field of over 500, from which winners and finalists were chosen. Says Keen: "The 2008 results represent a phenomenal mix of books from a wide array of publishers, which included Simon & Schuster, Tarcher/Penguin, HarperCollins, Hyperion, St. Martin’s Press, McGraw-Hill, John Wiley & Sons, & hundreds of independents."

Turner based much of the archaeological foundation of the book on his Master's Degree research at the University of Houston. Other finalist awards for The Identity Factor include The Indie Excellence Book Award (Beverly Hills, California), The Eric Hoffer Award (Titusville, New Jersey), and the Next Generation Indie Book Awards (Detroit, Michigan).

The Identity Factor is also being adapted as a feature film after the author’s successful U.S. launch as an official satellite event at the prestigious G’day USA 2008 festivities in Los Angeles earlier this year, sponsored in part by Qantas and Jacob’s Creek. In addition, the author’s previous novel, The Second Thirteen, has also been optioned for film, with his website awarded the honour of permanent placement in the National Library of Australia’s “PANDORA Archive” (http://pandora.nla.gov.au/tep/85122).

Set in Texas, romantic Cairo, Jerusalem, Washington, and San Francisco, The Identity Factor opens with the 1919 discovery of an ancient Egyptian tablet in the Sinai Peninsula, only to disappear then reappear in modern-day Cairo, where it becomes the centerpiece in an elaborate change-of-identities scheme by the phantom terrorist, Abu Nazer. Hot on Abu Nazer’s trail, however, is rookie profiler Zoë Gustaves. But Zoë soon finds unexpected antagonism from – and attraction to – charming Texas journalist, Rutherford Tyler, who is hot on the scent of a good story. Or is he? Because the deeper Zoë digs for answers about Abu Nazer’s identity, the more she finds those around her are not who they seem.

"Expertly executed, taut, [and] smart, The Identity Factor is a wonderfully old-fashioned suspense thriller that works. It is the kind of complex book writers supposedly don't write anymore" (Stephen Davenport, The Independent Weekly).