The Accidental Spy

The Travelers – Chris Pavone (Crown Books)

Bestselling author Chris Pavone has accomplished an amazing feat over the course of his three fiction outings. He has offered up three very distinctly different stories that all have a common thread; they all are not only well crafted, full of characters who run the gamut from likeable to despicable they also live up to their hype by being actually pulse pounding and fast paced.

Pavone’s latest, The Travelers, is a take on the fish out of water storyline, with Will, a travel writer for a glossy magazine suddenly thrust via some bad choices and some exploits caught on video, into international intrigue. What better cover for a forced spy than being a globetrotting travel writer.

 

A relatively mild-mannered type, Will turns out to be anything but ordinary as he searches for answers and if there is anyone he can truly trust. Pavone will have you guessing right through the journey to the ending that will have even veteran thriller readers muttering…I did not see that coming.

Thrills Are No Accident

The Accident – Chris Pavone (Crown Books)

One of the most common axioms about writing is “write what you know.” So it should come as no surprise that author Chris Pavone, who spent much of his career working for a variety of publishing houses, in a variety of roles, most notably as an editor; would build the premise of his latest book, The Accident in the world of publishing.

An anonymously submitted, apparently true, crime thriller, that involves a high profile media mogul and that somewhat implausibly crosses paths with government spies, lands in the lap of a down on her luck agent. It doesn’t take long for Isabel Reed to realize the goldmine/ticking time bomb that is in her possession.

The race is on; can she stay alive long enough to get the story told in the face of the forces that want to keep it under wraps. Certainly an interesting concept, the difficulty is in the execution; with so many characters and so many parallel storylines it easy for the reader to get muddled down in the mix. A couple of the characters stories are non-starters and seem to be here just for window dressing.

There have been a few recent bestsellers that started slowly, with a bit of confusion, so it’s worth giving The Accident the benefit of time while the story gears up. With a bit of added concentration the story will hang tough.