Reliable, pleasantly overplotted, low-impact thrills make this a perfect airplane read the next time you’re jetting to La-La...
Teddy Fay, the ex–CIA op and ex-assassin now working as a producer and stuntman at Centurion Pictures (Smooth Operator, 2016), goes up against two different tribes bent on making trouble for the studio where he’s found a home.
Before she married future Centurion head Ben Bacchetti, Tessa Tweed was an undergraduate at Oxford whose boyfriend Nigel Hightower III made a sex tape of them without telling her. Now someone’s gotten a hold of the tape and is determined to bend her to their will. The blackmailers, Star Pictures head Mason Kimble, still smarting over the rejection of one of his B-movie projects by Centurion director Peter Barrington, and his one-time frat brother Gerard Cardigan, plan to take control of Centurion by forcing Tessa, who owns a crucial block of shares, to vote in favor of their hostile takeover. And they’re not the only bad hombres with mergers on their mind. Sammy Candelosi, who’s just purchased a Las Vegas casino next door to Pete Genaro’s New Desert Inn, is convinced Genaro’s operation would be more profitable under his own management, and his less-than-legal maneuverings eventually put Teddy, now calling himself Billy Barnett so that he won’t be troubled by people who once knew him as Billy Burnett, in his sights as well. The complication that renders all these nefarious plots utterly unthreatening is that neither the murderous blackmailers nor the mobbed-up Vegas casino owner nor Slythe, his knife-wielding bodyguard, has any idea what an adversary they’re up against in Teddy, whose loyalty to Centurion is matched only by his uncanny skill at self-preservation.
Reliable, pleasantly overplotted, low-impact thrills make this a perfect airplane read the next time you’re jetting to La-La Land.Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1859-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
A very aptly titled gripper (received too late for a full review) that will have Grisham slapping his wife’s wrist in pique over the breakfast toast when he discovers Meltzer’s plot for his second novel (The Tenth Justice, 1997). Attorney Jared Lynch’s Manhattan firm takes on the defense of a psychopath and hands the case over to Jared, who soon finds that he’ll die if he loses this case. Meanwhile, in the assistant district attorney’s office, Jared’s wife Sara has the same case passed down to her and a similar stricture applies: She’ll also die if she loses. And further, although prosecutor and defense attorney sleep together, the law forbids any trading of information between them, despite the lethal warnings that neither can tell the other about. To top all this off, author Meltzer is an attorney himself, which lends the novel’s dialogue a sparkling undercurrent of real-life chitchat, not to mention the mutual saber-sharpening that readers will quickly pick up on and enjoy as a bonus. (Author tour)
Pub Date: May 13, 1998
ISBN: 0-688-15090-X
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1998
Like Jeffery Deaver, veteran Coben (Stay Close, 2012, etc.) is a magician who’s a lot more fun to watch when you don’t know...
Six years after the summer girlfriend he’s convinced is the love of his life throws him over to marry someone else, a shocking series of revelations draws a Massachusetts professor back to her.
“Promise me you’ll leave us alone,” Natalie Avery demanded of Jake Fisher after her wedding to surgeon Todd Sanderson. And for six years Jake’s done exactly that. But the news of Todd’s death rekindles his desire to see Natalie again. What could be the harm, now that she’s been widowed by the robbers who shot Todd to death? When he travels to their home in South Carolina, however, he walks into mystery and denial. Todd’s widow isn’t Natalie, but someone named Delia. Natalie’s sister Julie Pottham denies knowing anything about Jake. So do Cookie, the Kraftsboro Bookstore Café owner who served Jake and Natalie all those scones, and Rev. Kelly, who officiated at the wedding. In fact, there’s no record that Natalie and Todd were ever married at all. An anonymous email telling Jake, “You made a promise,” grieves Jake but doesn’t deter him from his search. Neither does a close encounter with a pair of killers who want to know where Natalie is and are certain Jake can tell them. Up till now, Jake’s nightmare is as infernally all-absorbing as Dr. David Beck’s in Tell No One (2001). But the discovery of a clue that begins to unravel the mystery also sends the tale spiraling past the bounds of plausibility, even for a thriller, until Jake’s quest for the truth entangles benevolent conspiracies, hired killers, multiple disappearances, the Mafia and all the people besides Natalie that Jake has held nearest and dearest.
Like Jeffery Deaver, veteran Coben (Stay Close, 2012, etc.) is a magician who’s a lot more fun to watch when you don’t know how he’s fooling you.Pub Date: March 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-525-95348-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
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