Nobody Walks

Herron, Mick. Nobody Walks. New York: Soho Press. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

The news had come hundreds of miles to sit waiting for days in a mislaid phone. 

And there it lingered like a moth in a box, weightless, and aching for the light.

Description:

It's a simple story. A quiet, solitary man working at a dead end job in a meat processing plant in France receives a message on his phone that his son, Liam, has died, a son he barely has had contact with in years. Tom Bettany immediately walks off his job, gathers his few possessions from a locker, and heads to London to learn something about Liam's death. Mick Herron's thriller Nobody Walks starts off quietly enough with this open-and-shut case, but Bettany's involvement soon expands the action in every way conceivable.

Bettany learns that Liam fell from his apartment terrace under the influence of an exotic drug. Whether he fell, was pushed, or "something else" is what Bettany wants to know. The police are of no help, ruling it a simple accidental death. But Bettany plunges in anyways to search for the facts and an explanation.

We soon learn that Bettany is no ordinary father, no run-of-the-mill meat packer. He is a former special ops agent with London's MI5, a man who walked off that job and the grid years ago for unknown reasons. Now, his previous government employers may or may not be happy he has returned to snoop around this case. Certainly the crime bosses and drug lords Bettany dealt with in his former life do not want him back in their territory whether or not they are involved with Liam's death.

The ties Bettany has with his former life prove difficult to reconnect with or to break. After all, nobody walks away clean from a government intelligence position as Bettany soon learns.

Intriguing, confusing, clever, suspenseful, and gripping, Nobody Walks is high stakes criminal investigation and underworld shenanigans by conniving, very hard people around every corner. A challenging, riveting story with one of the most surprising endings to any novel I have ever read. Nobody Walks truly satisfies with its first (and last) sentences and everything in between, a rarity in my experience. 

The best news is Herron has written many other thrillers, so I'm excited to plunge into his well-written characters, plot, and dialogue for many weeks to come. Here's to great, prolific writers!

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Hayes, Terry. I Am Pilgrim

The best thriller imaginable. One man, formerly of an ultra-secret intelligence unit for the United State, must find a lone terrorist with the capability to inflict a damaging plague on the entire country. Fabulous in its breathtaking suspense, clever story, and strong, intelligent characters. (previously reviewed here)