Rules of Vengeance - Softcover

Reich, Christopher

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099519631 ISBN 13: 9780099519638

Publisher: Arrow, 2010

Synopsis

It is six months since Jonathan Ransom foiled the attack on an Israeli jet that threatened to plunge the world into war. He has spent the last six months in hiding in South East Asia avoiding having to confront his wife's double life and the lie that was their eight-year marriage.

Now Emma has initiated a reconciliation which Ransom reluctantly goes along with. They meet in London and vow to start over with no more secrets between them.

But only minutes after they reunite, they bear witness to a terrible act of violence. A band of gunmen ambush a convoy of limousines carrying the U.S. Secretary of State and the Saudi Arabian Oil Minister to a secret meeting. Caught in the midst of the attack, Jonathan and Emma take matters into their own hands. When the violence subsides, the Saudi Minister has been killed, all of the terrorists are dead, and Emma is missing. Despite their actions, Jonathan and Emma fall under suspicion.

Pursued by MI5, Jonathan knows that his only path to freedom lies in tracking down his wife. To do so, he must learn once and for all the truth behind her identity, and whether she has renounced her ways as a spy. Or if he, Jonathan Ransom, is the ultimate pawn in a game far beyond his imagining.

About this title

Review:

Vince Flynn Reviews Rules of Vengeance

Vince Flynn is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of nine previous thrillers, including Consent to Kill, Act of Treason, and Protect and Defend. He lives in the Twin Cities with his wife and three children. Read his guest review of Christopher Reich's Rules of Vengeance:

Last summer, before I picked up Christopher Reich’s Rules of Deception, I’d heard it was the kind of smart, high-octane international thriller that would take me back to tales of espionage and political intrigue written by the masters—like Frederick Forsyth, Ken Follett, and Robert Ludlum. Those books were propulsive mixes of fact and fiction, set in a combustible, all-too-real world where peace balanced on a razor’s edge and nuclear annihilation was a single bullet away. The best of them, like Forsyth’s The Fourth Protocol and Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity, left you wondering if they might, in fact, be true. Might something like this really happen?

Then came the 1990’s. The Iron Curtain fell. Russia imploded. And Japan suffered a severe economic crisis. The world was left with America as its sole superpower. The bomb had been defused. We felt safe. And so ended the domination of international espionage blockbusters on the bestseller lists.

Along came Rules of Deception. Was it really a return to the big blockbuster of the 70’s and 80’s? Critics certainly were embracing it with gusto. So it was with some excitement and no small amount of skepticism that I picked up the book. The story started like a rocket and picked up speed from there. By page 20, I knew the critics had gotten it right. Rules of Deception was the very definition of a blockbuster: a lone, intrepid hero battling immense odds to save the world from a cataclysmic battle while also regaining the love of a fallen woman.

Now, Reich gives us Rules of Vengeance. Sequels are rarely as good as the original, so again, I was skeptical. And yet, Rules of Vengeance turns out to be that rare exception—where the novel not only stands up to its predecessor, but actually takes the story and characters in new—and completely surprising—directions. Again we meet Dr. Jonathan Ransom, a surgeon for Doctors Without Borders. The story begins with his arrival in London to deliver an address at a prestigious international medical conference, and it takes off from there at mach speed, offering more twists than the Monaco Grand Prix. I’m not going to give away any of the unexpected plot turns (and there are many), but I will say that once again, Ransom quickly finds himself in trouble not of his own making. And, once again, he is forced to maneuver between the good guys and the bad guys in order to figure out just what he’s been pulled into, and then make sure that no one else suffers because of it. The stakes are sky high. The locales are exotic. The plot is ripped from tomorrow’s headlines and Reich controls the story with a deft hand from beginning to end.

What’s particularly appealing about Jonathan Ransom is he is not a spy or a trained assassin. He is, in fact, the opposite: a doctor who has devoted his life to helping others—a loner working outside political boundaries who exemplifies the best in us all. But like each of us, he has a dark side that is both frightening and compelling. You do not want to make this man angry.

As for Christopher Reich, he—like Ransom—also may not be a trained spy or assassin (at least not to the best of my knowledge). But he certainly does manipulate the twists, summon the adrenaline, and create a landscape of thrills that can only leave readers with one lasting impression: Chris Reich is the real deal. —Vince Flynn

(Photo © Peter Hurley)

About the Author:

CHRISTOPHER REICH is the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Deception, Numbered Account, and The Patriots Club, which won the International Thiller Writers award for best novel in 2006. He lives in California with his family.

About this edition

• Publisher: Arrow
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0099519631
• ISBN 13: 9780099519638
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432