Deception - Hardcover

Altman, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399150404 ISBN 13: 9780399150401

Publisher: Putnam Pub Group, 2003

Synopsis

An ordinary woman is caught in extraordinary circumstances, in the crackling new thriller from a major new talent.

John Altman's first two suspense novels won remarkable praise. Now, Altman gives us his best yet.

Hannah Gray is on the run. Unwittingly involved in an insurance fraud, she's leapt upon a friend's offer of tickets to an Adriatic cruise just to clear her head and figure things out. Maybe the fraud has been discovered-or maybe the threat of exposure exists only in her mind. Couldn't it be? But on the ship, she meets Renee Epstein, and that's when her life changes. Renee's husband is a scientist, and he's on the run himself. He's taken off with equations about to be used for a purpose he had not at all intended, but while he's trying to figure out what to do with them, he's scribbled them on the flyleaf of a book.

And now his wife has given the book to some fool woman she's met on the boat.

Before he can retrieve it, the Epsteins are murdered, Hannah herself is targeted, and an extraordinary adventure begins through the Greek islands and Turkey, as Hannah Gray must use all of a hitherto-unsuspected resourcefulness to battle her way through a situation that only becomes more perilous by the minute. Filled with vivid characters, breathtaking suspense, and delicious atmosphere, Deception is indeed what thrillers ought to be and seldom are.

About this title

Review:

A smart girl who ought to know better gets trapped by greed and sex in a fraud that will ruin her life unless she can outrun it. And she does, taking advantage of a friend's ticket on a luxury European cruise to plan her next step. But then fate gets in Hannah Gray's way, in the form of a murdered scientist whose secret formula ends up in her possession.

Eluding the assasains who slay their way through the Greek Islands in search of the formula, and the spies who track her through Istanbul, Hannah never quite figures out why a few lines scribbled on the flyleaf of the scientist's guidebook are so important; in a clumsy bit of plotting, they involve the ultimate, planet-busting weapon, invented by a man with a social conscience who's run away rather than turn them over to a government that might not have one. But she quickly catches on to the fact that they're valuable enough to buy her way out of the trouble she's in and set her up for life, if she can get away from the killers on the ship and the G-men who are waiting on shore to take her into custody.

Altman is a solid craftsman who keeps the plot moving swiftly and the scenery vivid and appealing, but it's hard to care much about any of the good and/or bad guys and gals, or even figure out which is which. --Jane Adams, Amazon.com

About the Author:

John Altman comes from an extended family of writers. His previous books are A Gathering of Spies and A Game of Spies

About this edition

• Publisher: Putnam Pub Group
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0399150404
• ISBN 13: 9780399150401
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 262