KIRKUS REVIEW
A pedal-to-the-metal crime novel in which a sarcastic private
investigator gets more than he bargained for while working a missing person
case.
Former federal agent Nick Craig is a man who doesn’t “play
well with others.” He is impudent, ill-mannered and quick to deliver acerbic
one-liners. Working as a private investigator for a respected Manhattan-based
security consultant, Craig grudgingly accepts what appears to be a routine case:
to find a University of Washington student who has disappeared. The case quickly
grows complicated as Craig explores the dorm room of Kenneth Boyd (whom his own
lawyer father called “a wimp”). His belongings are gone, his computer’s history
has been erased and his car has been meticulously wiped clean. The only lead is
a picture of Boyd with an attractive young woman known around the campus as a
hard-core environmental activist. Further investigation leads Craig to Vermont
and the base of a radical environmentalist who is being watched by the FBI.
After witnessing the murder of that radical and his colleague (and almost
getting killed himself), Craig eventually lands in the mountains of Colorado
where he finally stumbles on a grand-scale conspiracy—and all of its
jaw-dropping revelations. While the storyline is ingeniously knotty, it also
requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief; some of Craig’s exploits
are incredible. But because the pacing is frantic and the narrative engaging,
readers will undoubtedly not be too distracted.
This action-packed thrill ride, reminiscent of Ian Fleming and
Nelson DeMille, will satisfy the most demanding literary adrenaline
junkie.
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