Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Woodburn Public Library | ALTMAN | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
An ordinary woman is caught in extraordinary circumstances, in the crackling new thriller from a major new talent. John Altman's first two suspense novels won remarkable praise. Now, Altman gives us his best yet. Hannah Gray is on the run. Unwittingly involved in an insurance fraud, she's leapt upon a friend's offer of tickets to an Adriatic cruise just to clear her head and figure things out. Maybe the fraud has been discovered-or maybe the threat of exposure exists only in her mind. Couldn't it be? But on the ship, she meets Renee Epstein, and that's when her life changes. Renee's husband is a scientist, and he's on the run himself. He's taken off with equations about to be used for a purpose he had not at all intended, but while he's trying to figure out what to do with them, he's scribbled them on the flyleaf of a book. And now his wife has given the book to some fool woman she's met on the boat. Before he can retrieve it, the Epsteins are murdered, Hannah herself is targeted, and an extraordinary adventure begins through the Greek islands and Turkey, as Hannah Gray must use all of a hitherto-unsuspected resourcefulness to battle her way through a situation that only becomes more perilous by the minute. Filled with vivid characters, breathtaking suspense, and delicious atmosphere, Deceptionis indeed what thrillers ought to be and seldom are.
Author Notes
John Altman was born in White Plains, New York on October 8, 1969, and is a graduate of Harvard University. In addition to writing fiction, he has worked as a teacher, musician, and freelance writer. He has penned several thrillers, including; The Art of the Devil: A Plot to Assassinate President Eisenhower, The Watchmen, A Game of Spies, Deception, and A Gathering of Spies.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In his first two well-received thrillers, A Gathering of Spies and A Game of Spies, Altman used familiar backgrounds from WWII fiction in imaginative ways. He does the same good service in his latest, an exciting and moving adventure set in the present but owing much to the moral quandaries explored by past masters such as Eric Ambler and John le Carre. Hannah Gray is a classic Ambler character-a woman fleeing one set of troubles and getting caught up in another. Gray discovers that her lover and business partner in a Chicago medical research firm has been pulling off massive medicare fraud without her knowledge. Instead of immediately blowing the whistle, Gray takes a last-minute offer from a friend to go on a cruise from Venice to the Greek Isles, a chance to lie low and think about her options. On board, Gray befriends an elderly couple, Renee and Steven Epstein. Unbeknownst to Gray, Steven is a scientist working for a top-secret U.S. government agency, and is having second thoughts about his major breakthrough on a new energy source with devastating weapons possibilities. The head of the agency, Keyes (who goes by only one name), sends a pair of agents-including one who suffers from a medical condition that lets him pass for a 13-year-old boy-to kill Steven and Renee and recover any records of the breakthrough. Renee innocently gives Gray a guidebook in which Steven had written down the energy formula, and soon Gray is ankle-deep in death and deception in exotic locales. Altman humanizes all this contrivance with many beautifully drawn characters, especially the distraught but resourceful Gray and the terminally overwrought Keyes, already weakened by the death of a young son some years before. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Modest chase thriller, Altman's third, with abundant international color and great pace. An impossibly young-looking assassin (casual passersby think he's a boy) efficiently carries out his contract on the Epstein couple only to realize a moment later that he's killed the wrong Epsteins. Cut to the Adriatic Sea and skittish, single Hannah Gray in her tiny cabin aboard the Aurora II. What should be an idyllic cruise is actually a secret escape. Entangled in a Chicago insurance fraud engineered by her no-account boyfriend Frank, Hannah is on the run using the alias Vicky Ludlow. Chirpy fellow passenger Renee Epstein takes "Vicky" under her wing, even hectoring grumpy husband Stephen into lending the young woman his travel guide. In short order, the man-child assassin reappears to kill these second Epsteins, the whole thing witnessed by Hannah, who flees the Aurora II. The chase is on in earnest, with Hannah now a fugitive twice over. The book she received from Stephen Epstein contains a priceless formula, written inside the back cover. Stateside, retrieval of the formula is engineered by brash bureaucrat Keyes, who has a Moneypenny-like assistant named Daisy. Imposing scientist Ed Greenwich is waiting for the formula, which has to do with nothing less than pricking a hole in the space-time continuum, and the Keyes team stays ahead in a sub rosa international race for it. But allegiances are a bit fuzzy. Keyes has colleagues with eastern European names, and he doesn't trust subordinates. But is it because of their loyalty or their competence? Quick cuts take us from Hannah on the run to Keyes at the home office to his operatives Leonard (the man-child assassin) and Dietz, dispatched to get the formula at all costs. Altman (A Game of Spies, 2002, etc.) keeps his multiple balls in the air with deft economy, some twists, and the right ratio of verbs to adjectives. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Altman set a high standard for himself with his first two novels, A Gathering of Spies and A Game of Spies, both of which were set in World War II. His third thriller is a contemporary tale that uses high-stakes physics as a catalyst for a chase-driven plot. Having accepted tickets from a friend whose plans have changed, Hannah Gray sets sail from Venice on a cruise to Istanbul. She needs time to think because of her involvement in a Medicare fraud case back home in Chicago. But that's the least of her problems: she is unwittingly given a paperback with a highly valuable scientific formula written inside. Stephen Epstein, on the run from Applied Data Systems, knows that his formula for predicting the lifetime of microscopic black holes can result in disastrous consequences if it falls into the wrong hands. When he is murdered before he can recover the paperback, Hannah is targeted and soon finds herself pitted against hired killers, Russian spies, a Saudi prince, and American agents. While not as compelling as Altman's first two novels, this lean, competent thriller is recommended for large public libraries and collections already holding his previous works.-Ronnie H. Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.