Pursuit: A Novel
by Thomas Perry
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Book Summary Information
Author: Thomas PerryEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-02-14
ISBN: 0812971388
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Book Reviews of Pursuit: A Novel
Book Review: Some minor flaws, but Perry certainly can write a good thriller.
Summary: 4 Stars
Sometimes "Do what you love and the money will follow." takes people down unusual paths. James Varney discovered early on in life that he craved adventure; the biggest adventure is killing people and getting away with it. He's made a very successful career out of his craving.
Roy Prescott is a specialist. His job is finding killers and stopping them. He does this by learning all he can about the killer, and knowing what the killer is going to do next. When thirteen people are killed in a restaurant in Louisville, Roy Prescott is eventually called in to figure out the why and the who. Varney becomes the biggest challenge of his career. He knows that nothing will stop Varney from killing again and again.
As in any investigation, leads are pursued which go nowhere. Of the thirteen bodies, only one was the intended victim. The rest are collateral damage. It takes a while for Prescott to figure out which of the bodies is the true intended victim; this changes the course of the investigation completely.
Prescott and Varney are almost evenly matched. Varney challenges Prescott, after Prescott questions his abilities and doubts his history. This would be a much more pleasant prospect if they were chess masters or tennis players. Varney kills two police officers, just to show Prescott what he's capable of. Unfortunately for quite a few more truly innocent bystanders, Varney is a guiltless killer and has no qualms about doing what he does best. The body count at the end of PURSUIT is quite high.
Perry can write thrillers as well as anybody out there. PURSUIT has some minor flaws, which I didn't really notice until I was finished reading the book. Varney puts up with a lot of crap from some people in Cincinnati, more than one would expect, even under the circumstances. His emotional collapse under the pressure from Prescott seems (again, in retrospect) surprising. But none of that bothered me when I was reading PURSUIT. I just kept reading, which is what Perry is so good at getting a reader to do.
Summary of Pursuit: A Novel
?Perry is the best suspense writer in the business. . . . Pursuit is relentless, filled with twists and turns, that rare page-turner that keeps one reading late into the night to finish.??The Boston Globe
Thirteen bodies are found in a Louisville restaurant. When the police can find no suspect or motive, a victim?s family seeks the services of the enigmatic and solitary specialist Roy Prescott, known for his ability to find people who don?t want to be found. Working outside the law and willing to do what the police can?t, Prescott hunts the killer, an elusive adversary who is as smart, as methodical, as deadly as he is. The only way to conduct this pursuit is to goad the killer into believing that he must kill Roy Prescott. It is a contest fought from one end of the country to the other, and both men understand that when it?s over, only one of them will be alive.
From the Paperback edition.
Thomas Perry's Pursuit is a dark tale of two killers, one a cold- blooded hit man and the other, the hero, something much murkier. When 13 people are mowed down in a restaurant, a police consultant realizes that it's the work of a professional who's tried to make a contract hit look like a random mass killing. Enter Roy Prescott, an expert in hunting down criminals using methods generally frowned on by law enforcement. Prescott uses the national media and the unknown killer's ego to draw his attention, then plays a game of cat-and- mouse with him in which the stakes quickly grow higher. Perry, best-known for his fine Jane Whitefield series, has a precise feel for characters who work for vengeance and justice outside the law, and Prescott easily gains the reader's sympathy while maintaining his bad-guy, good-guy mystique.
Pursuit may draw some comparisons with Lawrence Block's wry Hit Man and Hit List, but while Block is always excellent, it's Perry's work that'll have you waking up in a cold sweat. --Barrie Trinkle
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