A few years ago I turned up at the airport ready to jet off to Egypt on holiday with the feeling I’d forgotten something. I racked my brains. Had I locked the door? Check. Had I packed my lucky Speedo's? Check. Had I brought along a damn fine book for the beach? Bollocks.
With my flight being called to the gate, I rushed off the WHSmith to grab myself a book. Hot and flustered, I darted past the latest array of D-list celebrity autobiographies they were trying to flog to holidaymakers and locked eyes on one book on the ‘New Releases’ stand. I made my choice based on the fact I myself was in a rush, and picked up the appropriately named
Run. I’d not heard of the author before but the fact it was being hailed on the front cover as a
‘Bourne Identity for the 21st Century’ was good enough for me.
Two days into the holiday I realised what an awful mistake I had made picking up this book.
I should have picked up two Jeff Abbott books! I was tearing through the book as quickly as the main character, Ben Fosberg, was tearing up the pages in his attempts to escape the team of Homeland Security Agents who believed he had something to do with an apparent hit on a businessman who happened to be carrying Ben’s business card in his pocket.
My plans of lying in the sun or splashing around in the pool were slowly overtaken by my need to find out the answers to the questions Abbott throws up. Why was Ben was being hounded by these agents? Who is this mysterious stranger known as Pilgrim who has come to Ben’s aid? Does this have anything to do with the murder of his wife whilst on their Honeymoon two years earlier? Has anyone seen my Speedo's?
So much energy goes into this book from the get-go that you even start to feel the strain yourself such is the pace of the action that explodes with each turn of the page. You are left to keep guessing the reasons behind the scenario the main character finds himself in, with twists and turns along the way that keep you asking wondering all the way through who the bad guys really are in this story.
The comparisons to
The Bourne Identity are justified, but Abbott is his own man with his own style of writing. The
everyday-man personality of his main protagonist allows you to easily slip into that imaginary role and place yourself at the heart of the thrill-ride that is unfolding. It’s a character pattern that Abbott has followed in the majority of his books that I have read since.
It is surely only a matter of time before this book – along with a whole host of Abbott’s back catalogue – start getting picked up by Hollywood movie producers. If you like your action fast-paced and heart-pounding, then you can do little wrong than grab yourself a copy of this book.
