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!
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)
Hayes, Terry. I Am Pilgrim: A Thriller. New York: Atria. 2014. Print
First Sentences:
There are places I'll remember all my life -- Red Square with a hot wind howling across it, my mother's bedroom on the wrong side of Eight Mile, the endless gardens of a fancy foster home, a man waiting to kill me in a group of ruins known as the Theater of Death.
Description:
It's amazing the books you stumble upon and fall in love with while pursuing quality writing, characters, and plot. My serendipitous search for new titles has uncovered gems in the realm of high-action crime thrillers from writers like Thomas Harris (the Hannibal Lector series), Lee Child (featuring Jack Reacher), Jussi Adler-Olsen (following the Copenhagen police cold case Department Q), and Patricia Highsmith (with the ongoing adventures of The Talented Mr. Ripley).
These books are not for everyone. They usually center on a shocking act sometimes involving intense violence, committed by an unknown person who is extreme in his/her response to specific people and the world. The plots are driven by the efforts to identify and stop the perpetrator before further crimes are unleashed on society.
The work of such an investigation is carried on by one or many champions of justice, whether police, secret forces, or just an independent person who simply doesn't like evil to go unpunished. Of course, these good guys must do a lot of observation, reasoning, and survival during some very tense, unnerving scenes along the way before somehow completing their mission.
These are unbelievably engaging books. These authors consistently deliver tremendously well-written books, with solid character development and unpredictable roller coaster stories that are always complex and absorbing. They keep you reading page after page, nervously biting your nails and trying not to peek ahead down the page for answers as you follow the hero or villain on their separate quests of good and evil. Each page makes you fearfully anticipate an upcoming shock, like stepping into a creepy deserted house.
This is what these thrillers are about and, if that is not your cup of tea, you should avoid them. As for me, I've grown to love these authors with their deliciously complicated plots, and eagerly await any new releases.
A newcomer to this group of thriller-writers is Terry Hayes, a former US foreign correspondent and successful screenwriter of 25 years (two Mad Max movies among others). His debut novel I Am Pilgrim: A Thriller, fulfills my wildest expectations for a spy/crime novel. It has an original story (an intricate plot to unleash a virus on the United States); fascinating characters (the Saracen who is a thoroughly organized terrorist pitted against Pilgrim, a highly intelligent former member of a super secret US intelligence organization); and plenty of color the way (a variety of supporting characters, both good and evil, who assist or thwart both men in their struggles; exotic locales and dirty mountain villages; super secret technologies; and worlds of tremendous wealth and abject poverty.
If this wasn't enough, the plot of I Am Pilgrim also offers a plethora of equally compelling crimes and distractions along the way that may or may not be related to the Saracen terrorist plot.
- A woman found murdered in a bathtub with no possible means of identification, presenting a perfect murder that follows techniques described in an investigative theory book written by Pilgrim, a book checked out of New York City library on September 11, 2001;
- A New York cop who was a hero of the 9/11 Twin Tower evacuation and who somehow unravels Pilgrim's carefully-erased identity and tracks him down;
- A billionaire who slips over the ledge of his palatial home to his death, survived by his young wife, his beneficiary, with the perfect alibi;
- A female cop from Turkey who works with and against Pilgrim for unknown reasons during his investigation of the billionaire's death in her city;
- A man known as Whispering Death who knows of the terrorist plot, organizes the secret mission, and serves as the contact to the President for Pilgrim's mission.
The book is driven by the intricacies of these various plots, the thoroughness of the evil people seeking to carry out dastardly plans as well as the thoughtful steps taken to uncover these same plans and thwart them. It is the deeply-seeded commitment of each character that drives the action and keeps you in suspense until the last pages to find out the final conclusions to each plan.
This all may sound corny or contrived, but that is my fault in trying to get your interest. This is a riveting book that has more twists and turns than can be described. What I liked is that everything is carefully spelled out until it makes sense, both the evil plot and the investigation. You see the solidness of the terrorist's preparations as well as the logic behind each step Pilgrim takes to uncover and foil the plot. There is plenty of background information about US/Arab relations and governments to set the scenes and provide context for action. I also liked that Pilgrim relies on his brain rather than muscles, guns, or powers of seduction to overcome the dead ends and people who stand in his way. A thoughtful, capable hero in all ways.
I cannot recommend this new thriller highly enough for those who enjoy a carefully structured plot that pulls you through a breakneck chase to the extremes of tension. Extremely well-written, carefully plotted, and engrossing to the very end.
The good news is that Hayes is hard at work on a second thriller novel. Can't wait!
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
Harris, Thomas. The Silence of the Lambs
Incredibly tense and edgy tale of a young FBI agent who must work with a serial killer who cannibalizes his victims to solve a bizarre kidnapping/murder case.
Child, Lee. The Killing Floor (1st in the Jack Reacher series)
Jack Reacher is an ex-Army Military Police who wanders the country with a toothbrush only, stumbling upon evil-doers he must stop. Incredibly great writing and plots, with some violence but plenty of other complexities and actions as Reacher draws on his intelligence as often as his strength to stop the bad guys.
Adler-Olsen, Jussi. The Keeper of Lost Causes (1st in the Department Q series)
Department Q was started as a method of giving some sort of work to Carl Morck, the burned out, lazy, trouble-making murder investigator on the Copenhagen police force. In Department Q, he is given stacks of unsolved cold cases that he begins to tackle. These are brutal crimes that Morck and his mysterious, efficient assistant Assad begin to slowly unravel and actually solve.
Highsmith, Patricia. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1st in the Ripley series)
Tom Ripley is a social striver, a poor college student sent to Italy to retrieve the layabout Dickie Green to take over the family business. Ripley admires Green's casual, wealthy lifestyle and plots to take over his identity and money. Unbelievably, he seems to get away with murder over and over again.
First Sentences:
