Staff Reviews

There are Nick Petrie thrillers that have complicated plots and lots of players, but The Runaway is pretty straightforward - Peter tries to help a young woman who escaped from an abusive convenience store owner into the arms of the trucker, only to find her savior is a sociopath robbing second homes. The violence is a little more graphic than in some of the other adventures, which could be a plus or minus, depending on the reader. And for those who need to catch their breath, there’ll be no such thing this time out - it’s edge of the seat, all the way through! 

The latest Peter Ash thriller is Nick Petrie’s take on a Western shoot ‘em up, complete with daring river escapes, chases across the plains, and a big shootout finale. Ash stops to help a stranded woman on a dirt road in Nebraska, a task which quickly becomes absurdly arduous. The novel has long, tense drives interspersed with pit stops for crime and violence that remind me of the long hauls that tied together some of James Crumley’s legendary books. And where Petrie started the series focused on a visceral depiction of Ash’s PTSD, he’s expanded in the recent books to the minds of the baddies, poking around dark corners to discover from whence violence and evil springs. Lucky for us (and the bystanders who get caught up in his adventures), the only thing Peter Ash hates more than the indiscriminate killing that follows him around like a Charlie Brown rain cloud of death is letting bad men get away with abusive, evil acts. The Runaway is a series highlight, a stripped down and lean action movie on the page.