Nothing to be sorry about in this one……   ****

Reading Robotham’s novels is like playing Ping Pong. One is good, the next not so good, then good, and on and on. This is a good one!

It seems when he writes the protagonist, in this case Joe O’Loughlin, in first person and adds one other character in first person, Robotham’s writing excels. He did this in Shatter, where the other point of view character was the villain. In this novel the other first person point of view is a teenager, Piper Hadley, who was kidnapped three years ago along with her friend, Tash McBain. Robotham’s ability to get into the heads of these characters makes for an outstanding read.  In this case, he reveals the mind of a teenager in a way that is not only believable but made me forget it was the author writing.

This novel has a great deal of tension, a few scenes that made me cringe, and plenty of twists at the end that kept me guessing. Once the kidnapper is revealed, I had to stop for a minute and think about whether it made sense for that character to be the culprit.  And yes, it did.  There is even a moment when I caught myself saying out loud to the character, Piper, “Don’t do that, don’t you know who that is!?” I will let you figure out when I did that.

My only concern now is since the last book, The Wreckage, was not one of his good ones, and this one is, what will the next one be like in this game of back and forth?

In the meantime this one gets four stars. This one loses a star for a couple of plot points that I can’t point out without this review being a spoiler.

An apt title for this one…..  **

This novel starts out well. Somewhat – gripping, interesting characters, multiple viewpoints. Then it begins to drag, the characters multiply a bit too much and become hard to keep straight, and then it just becomes unbelievable in regards to what the characters do.

Michael Robotham has a knack for writing good and not so good novels. This would be one of the not so good. His two main characters, Vincent Ruiz and Joe O’Loughlin, are back and as we expect save the day. It is the how that adds to the unbelievable aspect.

The settings jump between Baghdad, London, Luton, Istanbul, and Washington. The chapters are short and the characters are exposed only a little at a time, making the story somewhat confusing. Fortunately, each chapter heading lets the reader know where they are, otherwise it would be more confusing than it is.

One of the threads that weaves through the story is around a character known only as The Courier. He is a ruthless killer who lets nothing get in his way nor leaves anyone alive in his wake. I realize the heroes Ruiz and O’Loughlin have to survive to continue the series, but for both to encounter The Courier and not die was a bit much. This is not just a weakness in Robotham’s novel, but a problem in most thrillers – when a killer hesitates when confronted by the protagonist or leaves them bound and gagged instead of dead.

The most unbelievable scene, however, is when Ruiz interrupts a dinner meeting between the CIA and the bankers involved in the story. Ruiz would have never been able to even get close to the table, much less sit down as if he belonged.

This one gets two stars as I move on to the next Robotham novel, hoping for a good one.