Well, this review took longer coming to fruition than I anticipated. Between my 9-5 job (which isn’t actually 9-5) and reading this book and Mark Cuban’s How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It AND playing video games, this past week has been rough! Twenty-four hours in a day is not nearly enough.
I was first introduced to Brad Metzler’s thrillers when my mom gave me her copy of The Tenth Justice and though I have a number of his books still to read, I have been hooked ever since. I love a good mystery (as evidenced by last week’s review of Don’t Let Go) but a good suspenseful mystery thriller is always a bit more fun. Especially when I don’t see the ending ahead of time.
Metzler’s writing doesn’t flow as effortlessly as Harlan Coban’s, J.A. Jance’s, or Robert B. Parker’s, but is accomplished, nonetheless. From the first page of the prologue, I entered a dramatic and intriguing story which urged me to read as much as I could during my commute. Every page seemed to leave me breathless with anticipation of what was to come next, curious to learn more of the story behind the “main” character, Nola. Making me wish the bus ride was just a little bit longer.
I assume Metzler intended Nola to be the protagonist of the The Escape Artist; but in the end, I felt she was more of a supporting character while the story was more about Zig. The story follows Zig, a mortician at Dover Air Force Base who prepares our fallen heroes for burial, when the “body” of Nola Brown, his deceased daughter’s childhood acquaintance arrives.
From the moment Nola arrives at Dover, Metzler weaves an intricate story full of espionage, betrayal, and political cover ups that urged me to frantically flip the pages to discover the story behind Nola’s “body.”
In the end, Metzler has written a book I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend. As I mentioned at the beginning of my review, being unable to see the ending makes for a perfect mystery, and Metzler does a masterful job keeping the shocking conclusion and plot twist hidden till the very end.
Note from Jay Bishop: I received an Advance Reading Copy (ARC) of The Escape Artist from Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley.
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