Runner (Sam Dryden #1)

- By Patrick Lee

When I started this novel, it was already a bit late in the night. And let me tell you at the beginning, don't you dare open this novel, just before you go to bed; for, in case you think you could cozily drift to sleep after turning few pages, you are sadly mistaken. You will just toss and turn around on the bed until you give up and open the darn book again and rush through to the ending. It's that kind of a book. And if you are like me, you will enjoy every bit of it, despite what it costs the next day! An adrenaline pumping, blood gushing, absolute whopper of a thriller. Patrick Lee with his first Sam Dryden novel sets a pace that ticks like a timer on a bomb and rushes the readers through its pages for the ending.

Sam Dryden is an ex-Secret Service agent, who is living a quiet life in El Sedero, a small Southern Californian coastal town. While taking a nighttime run on the boardwalk, he runs into a young girl who is running away from heavily armed men intend on killing her. This Runner seems to know nothing about herself save her name, Rachel, and remembers nothing more than the past two months she was held captive, from which she is trying to escape and urges him to help her. Eventually, they escape from the immediate vicinity, only to realize that they were running from far more powerful force who seems to be just a step behind them in their plan to find a safe place. While trying to find an escape, he tries to get more information from the girl and realizes she could read his thoughts. Upon questioning, she tells him she had no idea how she could do it and that there seems to be more to her story, since someone is hell bent on killing her and she has no idea why! And the story kicks up a notch, with Dryden and Rachel trying to figure out a way to thwart their enemies, yet uncover who Rachel really was. Will the truth set her free? Why is she being hunted? Why can she read minds? In search for finding answers, she puts herself and Sam in crossfire. Will they escape unscathed? Every page turned is a preview of the next, with impending doom just hovering around the corner, like a tornado that is gathering around, ready to dance its way to destruction in the blink of an eye.

Sam Dryden is an instant super hero, yet only a human, with a strong sense of right and wrong and a good dose of empathy. Rachel is a mystery to begin with and is uncovered layer by layer, garnering sympathy along the way. Gaul, the main antagonist in the novel is smart, calculative and every bit a match to Sam Dryden's determination to keep Rachel alive. Patrick Lee does a fantastic job to keep the readers on the edge of their seats.

In this age of technology and biometrics, there hardly is a sphere that seems unimaginative to us humans. Every new invention gets us that bit close to those science-fiction realities of either finding ourselves in Zombie land or being overtaken by machines or creating a new race altogether. Yet, we cannot live without these inventions, if only to test the boundaries of science that seem to stretch only as far as our imagination could go. Ah, the possibilities!!Or the repercussions!

I urge all the fellow thrill seekers to pick it up and enjoy the roller coaster. It's one hell of a ride!

Happy Reading Fella Readers!!

Pines Trilogy

- By Blake Crouch

Wayward Pines is a tiny town with population of four hundred and sixty one. People are friendly and they live in Victorian style houses surrounded by picket fences and have barbeques on a nice Summer evening, with crickets chirping in the woods nearby. They live in the moment and smile and laugh and engage in social rituals. In short, they live in paradise on earth, where their kids go to school which does not give them any homework! Anyone who visits the town is persuaded to stay there by the sheer beauty it offers.

Ethan Burke is a Secret Service agent who travels to Wayward Pines, Idaho, in search for missing agents, along with another Secret Service Agent Stallings. In a freak accident, he finds himself on the side of a river, without a wallet or phone or badge or gun, severely battered with no memory of where he was and what happened. He begins walking along the town roads, with severe headache and tries to remember anything about the roads or the houses he seem to find himself amongst. Finding the locals, he starts asking them questions and their answers were not very forthcoming. However, his loss of memory is short lived and upon receiving a treatment at the local hospital, he seems to remember where he was and what he had to do. However, the Sherriff in town was not very supportive, nor were the locals. He seems to think that there is something wrong with the town, because all his attempts at finding the answers seems to be thwarted, either by recurring headaches or the Sherriff or the locals.

He meets a bartender girl, Beverly, who seems to be the only one willing to provide him answers. But in an intended display of mob mentality, Beverly is torn apart by the locals and Ethan is left alone to find answers he came looking for and trying to find an escape route from this town, which seemingly looks like an impossible task, because the exit roads seem to loop back into the town. And when he finds the other missing agent, Kate, who seems to not only be happily settled in the town, but looks much more aged that he remembers her to be, he thinks he may be losing his mind. Warned by her to just adapt and not try to escape, because they are watching and listening, with sensor activated cameras in trees, street lamps and houses, he realizes that he cannot live in this jail, however beautiful it looks from the outset. So, he sets off into the woods, only to find the town  boundary surrounded by an electrical fence which looks like it could fry anything that approaches it, with a warning about danger beyond the fence. However, he is determined to leave the town and he keeps walking further into the woods and finds himself climbing an impossible mountain in the hope of escaping the town. During his climb, he encounters an almost human looking monster called an abby, that is bent on killing him. In the struggle ensued, he kills it and escapes into a cave that he crawls into, only to find himself back in the hospital.  David Pilcher, the psychiatrist tries to calm him down, when Ethan refuses to stay another minute in the town without understanding what is going on. That is when he is told the truth that they are the only living human kind on the planet and that the year is three thousand and the remaining human species is extinct and the earth is taken over by abbies. He is taken to the town fence and is shown the borders.

The eccentric David Pilcher is the one who orchestrated this entire charade of civilization to keep a semblance of peace in the last humane society. When Ethan questions as to why he could not just tell the people the truth, he explains that having told the people the truth, people refused to believe it and killed themselves and hence he had no choice but to enforce rules and consequences for breaking the rules. And he urges Ethan to take the role of Sherriff and handle the peace keeping in the town. Thus, Ethan finds himself now holding the secret about human kind and playing the charade along with everyone. However, as with every well set society, there are rule breakers and when its discovered that few people in the town have found ways of communicating without being discovered, he is asked to investigate. And his investigation leads him to a place in forest, where a group of people have let go of the charade and are breaking all the rules and talking about their past lives and sharing their emotions. Ethan empathizes with the group, but being the Sherriff and for the greater good, he could not disclose what is going on. Having found himself in a situation where he needs to maintain the charade, yet his core values push him to explain the truth to his fellow companions, he is forced to walk on the fence line of right and wrong. The rest of the series focuses on how Ethan burke embraces the truth about human extinction and how me makes his choices at every turn for the greater good.

Wayward Pines, by Blake Crouch is a no non-sense, fast paced thriller that is guaranteed to scintillate all your adrenaline senses. It tells a fascinating science fiction tale that engages the reader and talks about the people who live in a seemingly beautiful paradise with enforced rules. It is a page turner and a definite read for all mystery/science fiction lovers.

Happy Reading fella readers!!

Invisible

- By James Patterson with David Ellis

One of the best crime thrillers I read in recent times. Certainly a page turner that kept me hooked. James Patterson is not new at weaving a web of suspense, nor is his style unknown. He is a master plotter and this book does not disappoint his fans. Along with David Ellis, he manages to keep the reader engrossed in the plot with interesting twists and keeps the adrenaline pumping all through the novel.

Emmy Dockery is an FBI research analyst who lost her sister in a fire accident. Though the police rule it out as an accident, she believes its a murder committed by a serial killer capable of pulling off a perfect crime that looks like an accident. Without support from her superiors, she launches her personal mission, scouring through the internet for fires that look like accidents and the more she researches, the more convinced she is, that the fire was no accident but a perfectly executed murder. Having been disciplined by her superiors and mocked by newspapers, she turns to her ex-fiance, Harrison Books Bookman, who was an ex-FBI agent, to help her. Having gone through her research, though he is skeptical about the case, he believes in her and manages to get an approval for a small team of four members to take the case further.

The rest of the novel is about revelations: Is Emma, in her own mind fabricating a case because she is unable to accept her sister's death as an accident? Or, is Emma's research true? The truth in either case is tantalizingly close with every page turned, yet that bit far, to keep you engrossed, with enough twists in the plot to keep even an avid crime reader in suspense.

Not a book to overlook, definite read for any mystery lover.

http://www.amazon.in/Invisible-James-Patterson

My Sister's Grave

- By Robert Dugoni

Oh Boy!! It was a fast paced, adrenaline pumping, emotional ride to closure. I could hardly take my eyes off the page.

Sarah Crosswhite disappears on a storm ridden night, while driving home. In the subsequent investigation, Edmund House, a convicted rapist , is tried and arrested for Sarah's murder, though her body was never found. The evidence was flimsy and the trial was a mere formality. The town moved on, however, her sister Tracy and her family, did not get the closure they sought.

Twenty years later, a dog digs up a bone that is identified to be that of Sarah Crosswhite. At that time, Tracy is with the Seattle Police department, as a detective, still trying to find the answers as to what happened to her sister on that fateful night. The evidence found in her sister's grave conflicts with the evidence twenty years ago. Tracy, convinced of a cover up, intends to seek justice. She reaches out to her childhood friend Dan O'Leary, who is now practicing law in Cedar Grove to help release an innocent from jail and to reopen the investigation of her sister's murder.

The rest of the story, moving between past and present, unveils the truth, bit by bit, as to what happened to Sarah. In her quest for truth, Tracy steps on a lot of shoes, but, she perseveres to the end, to find the answers. But, can she handle what she finds? Should she have left the dead for the dead, instead of seeking answers that should have been left buried, along with her sister?

Robert Dugoni does a fabulous job of keeping the suspense until the very end and misleading quite convincingly. I loved the characters in the novel. Just when I thought, this is the one who did it, I am faced with another side of the character, that had me rethinking! The characters had different shades, each contrasting and humane.

For a crime thriller, this still managed to evoke all the emotional triggers of love, affection, loyalty, friendship and courage, which was a pleasant surprise. The novel was well written, precise and logical. And the final twist?? I sure did not see it coming, I can tell you that much!

Not the sort to pick up if you are in a hurry to be somewhere. And certainly not for a bedtime read, you won't get any!!

For all fellow readers, who love a good crime thriller, this is a MUST read!!

You

 - By Caroline Kepnes

I should say that this random pick was one of the best I read in recent times. Oh Gosh, it is deliriously creepy, unbelievably sensual, impossibly addictive. By the very subtext of the novel, I should not have liked the book, let alone loved it.

Joe Goldberg is obsessed. The story is about his object of obsession, told from his perspective. Guinevere Beck, or Beck as she likes to be called is an aspiring writer, who has no clue about life, who has some serious issues and is selfish enough to use people to get to her objective. While browsing in Mooney bookstore, she catches the eye of Joe Goldberg, who works there and he is instantly obsessed with her. While ringing her bill at the counter, they flirt a little and Joe decides that she is THE ONE. From that moment on, he stalks her every minute - quite literally!! Active on networking sites - Twitter and Facebook, and into emails and texting more than calls, Beck provides an easy access to her personal life to anyone on the internet. And he swallows up the whole of her social networking and gets hold of her mobile phone on a freak encounter and hacks into her email and inserts himself into her life, creating a fabricated life that eventually makes her fall for him. Will she find out about his secret? How does he play the act of an innocent bystander, while all the while knowing more about her than he confesses? In that narrow walk on the tripwire, who trips first?

For a debut novel, Caroline Kepnes was brilliant in her story telling and her play of words. She told a compelling dark tale of obsession, that left me astounded at her audacity for creating a character (Joe Goldberg) that snuck into my mind and played havoc with right and wrong, while I rooted for him. I should have cursed him for existing, yet, I could not help but be absorbed into his mind and live in it. The obsession was like a weed, growing in my mind too and that is the beauty of the novel. The characters just grow on you. While other characters have good roles to play and are introduced via Joe's reading of Beck's emails, they all play an important role in the novel. No character is undeserved, no word is misplaced and the novel is constructed intelligently, to drive you to obsession, page by page.

You, by Caroline Kepnes is definitely worth a read!

Last Man Standing

 - By David Baldacci

“I defy you to begin this book and leave it unfinished” – Sunday Express…

Well, I got to say, that suits the book perfectly. I just could not keep the book down and believe me when I say that I have read enough action thrillers to not be surprised by the tone or the story or the action sequence. But this is my first Baldacci’s novel, an impulse buy and I was glued from the word GO. Amazingly written, giving enough rope to the details and practically painting the picture for the reader, both about the surroundings and from the perspective of the characters in that environment and to do it with such finesse is brilliant. And Baldacci has done an outstanding job with this one.

The story is about the FBI super-elite Hostage Rescue Team member, Web London. When he lost his entire team on what was supposed to be a bust operation of a drug dealer’s nest, in an alley, in what turns out to be an ambush, he just about lost everything he cared for and if there was something that he needed at that moment, was perhaps the retribution for his team, but he finds his reputation tainted and suspicions thrown at him from his own colleagues. And despite the deep loss he felt and apparently no time to regroup his thoughts, he needed to find answers. Answers to why he was the “last man standing” among his team and why he was not dead as he was supposed to be. And so begins his journey, in the due process sifting through the complex fabric of his life as a child and into a lethal world of his career and into finding the only other survivor, a ten year old boy named Kevin, who has gone missing.

The story inevitably grips the reader all the way to the last word. And more importantly, it evokes strong emotions towards all the people who do thankless jobs and never have a prayer said in their name (perhaps!) or have their memory confined to a wooden frame. And the author’s writing just about makes you wish that there would probably be a bit more to the story so that you could flip through the pages and get into the life of Web London, the protagonist of the novel and perhaps know him better, though what all was to be known about him was succinctly pointed out. He is just that sort of a character, with a little mystery associated with him and slips like a sand through fingers, never letting you get a grip! I, for one, could have used more about him!! On the other hand, there are other characters, each as strong as Web London, but well, the hype had to build around the main protagonist to cultivate the empathy!!! And I have no complaints!

Not the sort of a book you might want to pick when you are about to go to a party or on a date ;), but yeah, certainly something you want to pick, if you seem to be in a mood for some thrill and have time! Baldacci does not cut down on details and I got an impression that he likes to paint a vivid picture to the reader and build up the adrenaline, pretty much how the characters see it. You are as involved as the character and that is a significant achievement for any author. So, I got to say, hands down to David Baldacci, he has my attention and just about spiked my ante for another one of his writing.