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From the publisher:

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Midwives and The Flight Attendant comes a twisting story of love and deceit: an American man vanishes on a rural road in Vietnam, and his girlfriend, an emergency room doctor trained to ask questions, follows a path that leads her home to the very hospital where they met.

The first time Alexis saw Austin, it was a Saturday night. Not in a bar, but in the emergency room where Alexis sutured a bullet wound in Austin’s arm.

Six months later, on the brink of falling in love, they travel to Vietnam on a bike tour so that Austin can show her his passion for cycling and he can pay his respects to the place where his father and uncle fought in the war. But as Alexis sips white wine and waits at the hotel for him to return from his solo ride, two men emerge from the tall grass and Austin vanishes into thin air. The only clue he leaves behind is a bright yellow energy gel dropped on the road.

As Alexis grapples with this bewildering loss, and deals with the FBI, Austin’s prickly family, and her colleagues at the hospital, Alexis uncovers a series of strange lies that force her to wonder: Where did Austin go? Why did he really bring her to Vietnam? And how much danger has he left her in?

Set amidst the adrenaline-fueled world of the emergency room, The Red Lotus is a global thriller about those who dedicate their lives to saving people, and those who peddle death to the highest bidder.

There is no feeling better than to pick up a book by an author that I have read in the past and find that he is not mired in one style of book. That in writing a novel that is nothing at all like the previous one I read, found it as good, and not at all similar to his past writings. The Red Lotus is Chris Bohjalian at his best, a great story, well written with excellent development of principal characters.

Alexis is a young doctor who is one of the emergency room physicians in the hospital she works in. She is dedicated to and good at what she does. While her love life is somewhat limited by the hours she works she does date. The strangest date she manages is when Austin is brought in with a bullet wound in his arm. His story is that he got caught up in a fight between other men in a bar and by bad luck got in the way of the gunshot. Austin, also coincidentally works at the same hospital that Alexis does, although in another department. The two begin dating and seem to be getting more and more involved. Austin’s hobby and greatest interest is bike riding, but not just around the neighborhood, but on long-distance runs with organized groups.

About eight months after the two meet, Austin invites Alexis to go with him on an organized tour sponsored by a professional biker’s organization to Vietnam. He tells her that besides the ride he wants to visit two sites for family reasons. At one, his uncle was killed, and at the other, his father wounded during the Vietnam war. Arriving there Austin decides that he wants to go by himself to visit the two sites and does so. When he doesn’t return and can’t be found by the group searching both the Vietnamese police and the American FBI representative in the area are called in to help.

Alexis has to return to the US and to work but decides she wants to see if she can find out what happened to Austin and hires a private detective. In a short time a body is brought back to the US with Alexis identifying it as that of Austin. What is the reason for his death if not the one of natural causes shown at first sight? The well told story unfolds with Alexis and the private detective looking at a possible connection at the hospital where she and Austin worked. Discovery of facts and clues are found by judicious logic and the reader is left with the obvious desire to get Bohjalian’s next book as soon as published.

3/2020 Paul Lane

THE RED LOTUS by Chris Bohjalian. Grand Central Publishing (March 17, 2020). ISBN: 978-1538748145. 384p.

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A man with a mysterious past must find a missing teenage girl in this shocking thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Run Away.

Thirty years ago, Wilde was found as a boy living feral in the woods, with no memory of his past. Now an adult, he still doesn’t know where he comes from, and another child has gone missing.

No one seems to take Naomi Pine’s disappearance seriously, not even her father-with one exception. Hester Crimstein, a television criminal attorney, knows through her grandson that Naomi was relentlessly bullied at school. Hester asks Wilde-with whom she shares a tragic connection-to use his unique skills to help find Naomi.

Wilde can’t ignore an outcast in trouble, but in order to find Naomi he must venture back into the community where he has never fit in, a place where the powerful are protected even when they harbor secrets that could destroy the lives of millions . . . secrets that Wilde must uncover before it’s too late.

Harlan Coben introduces a new character for his readers with this book. It is a man simply called Wilde due to his very unusual past.

Wilde was discovered as a boy roaming free in the woods. He has no memory of where he came from, but does speak and understand English and had lived and survived for years through entering homes of people living on or near the woods and taking food and clothing. Once picked up, he is taken in and adopted by a family, goes to school and serves in the military.

Now as an adult, Wilde makes a living as a person that does things for other people. He learns about the disappearance of Naomi Pine, the daughter of a man that he knew in school but does not react until asked to find her by Heather Crimstein, who is a television criminal attorney. Heather has learned from her grandson that Naomi has been relentlessly bullied in school and may have fled that life.

The search for Naomi and events following her disappearance are action-filled and as described by the author constitute the draw of the book for the reader. The story, while interesting, is not as mesmerizing as the normal Harlan Coben book generally is. The first section features a great deal of conversation with little action and the actions of Wilde in looking for the lost girl come across as a bit disjointed. The book is by Harlan Coben which makes it desirable but an ending that seems to terminate the series without setting up another Wilde novel could be what the author wants in testing the main character.

3/2020 Paul Lane

THE BOY FROM THE WOODS by Harlan Coben. Grand Central Publishing (March 17, 2020). ISBN: 978-1538748145. 384p.

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The explosive new thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of James Patterson’s Michael Bennett series

When a Gulfstream jet goes down in the Bahamas carrying a fortune in cash and ill-gotten diamonds, expat diving instructor Michael Gannon is the only person on the scene. Assuming himself the beneficiary of a drug deal gone bad, Gannon thinks he’s home free with the sudden windfall until he realizes he forgot to ask one simple question.

Who were the six dead men on the plane?

Gannon soon learns the answer to that fateful question as he is thrust into an increasingly complex and deadly game of cat and mouse with a group of the world’s most powerful and dangerous men who will stop at nothing to catch him.

But as the walls close in, Gannon reveals a few secrets of his own. Before he retired to the islands, Gannon had another life, one with a lethal set of skills that he must now call back to the surface if he wants to make it out alive.

As a decade-long James Patterson writing partner, Michael Ledwidge is a pro at writing fast-paced, in-the-moment prose, tightly choreographed action set pieces and plot twists that drop at exactly the right moment. With this novel, he kicks off an unstoppable, gripping new thriller series.

Michael Gannon is an American ex-pat living in the Bahamas where he is a part-time diving instructor, sport fisherman and has his own boat. He is enjoying a relaxed life in the sun with no cares to weigh him down. The novel opens when Michael spots a corporate jet flying low over the ocean near where he is fishing. The plane splashes down and he heads over to see if he can render any assistance to passengers on board. Getting there he finds six dead men on the plane. Diving down to see if any passengers are still alive Michael finds a fortune in both cash and diamonds and thinking that he has come upon a drug deal gone bad takes the fortune and heads home.

A combined U.S. Navy and FBI investigation of the crash brings out what is a plot by certain leaders of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to squelch damning evidence on themselves which is scheduled to be broadcast by a man hiding in an embassy in London. These people find that Michael Gannon has taken the cash and diamonds and a search and kill hunt for him begins. But we quickly find that Gannon has a past which is very helpful in fending off his would-be killers.

Ledwidge is an experienced author with a background that includes collaboration with James Patterson and appears to be launching a series of his own featuring Michael Gannon. These future books may include action in the Caribbean working out of the Bahamas and should prove well worth the read.

3/2020 Paul Lane

STOP AT NOTHING by Michael Ledwidge. Hanover Square Press; Original edition (March 3, 2020). ISBN: 978-1335044952. 416p.

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From the publisher:

The first novel in an explosive new series inspired by Robert Ludlum’s Bourne universe, The Treadstone Resurrection introduces an unforgettable hero and the shadowy world that forged him…

Treadstone made Jason Bourne an unstoppable force, but he’s not the only one.

Operation Treadstone has nearly ruined Adam Hayes. The top-secret CIA Black Ops program trained him to be an all but invincible assassin, but it also cost him his family and any chance at a normal life. Which is why he was determined to get out. Working as a carpenter in rural Washington state, Adam thinks he has left Treadstone in the past, until he receives a mysterious email from a former colleague, and soon after is attacked by an unknown hit team at his job site.

Adam must regain the skills that Treadstone taught him–lightning reflexes and a cold conscience–in order to discover who the would-be killers are and why they have come after him now. Are his pursuers enemies from a long-ago mission? Rival intelligence agents? Or, perhaps, forces inside Treadstone? His search will unearth secrets in the highest levels of government and pull him back into the shadowy world he worked so hard to forget.

Joshua Hood is the author of several previous novels involving men and women at war. His books were action-packed with a great knowledge of weaponry and methods used in armed combat. He takes up a theme developed by the late Robert Ludlum and creates a scenario revolving around the actions of a group working for the CIA. They purportedly developed a method of creating a super warrior, naming that project Treadstone.

The soldiers created by the Treadstone group have superior reflexes, superb analytical skills and a personality that incorporates a no prisoners taken attitude towards any enemy they face. The character used by Hood is Adam Hayes and the Jason Bourne of Ludlum’s novels does not appear in the story.

Hayes has resigned from the CIA and is working as a carpenter in the state of Washington. He is married and has one son and while not satisfied with the tedium of everyday life has no plans to return to the active lifestyle of a CIA assassin. With no warning, Hayes is attacked by a hit squad at his job site but finds that he still has the skills to kill the would-be killers and escape with his life. His plan then becomes finding the people that attacked him, and in so doing, is pulled into a Venezuela that is completely destitute due to their government robbing the country blind with one man in particular singled out and destined for elimination. From Venezuela Hayes then travels into Colombia attempting to find and kill the members of the group that is after him.

Ludlum’s characters were always cast as regular people that could get hurt or even killed in the action they were subjected to in his novels. Adam Hayes, on the other hand, is presented as a superman moving at the speed of light from one dangerous situation to another. He gets beat up, almost killed and just keeps on trucking. The ending of the book has Hayes already looking for the next assignment and ready to jump into whatever awaits him. For those that like their novels action-packed and moving like an express train, Joshua Hood’s creation of Adam Hayes will be very satisfying.

3/2020 Paul Lane

ROBERT LUDLUM’S THE TREADSTONE RESURRECTION by Joshua Hood. G.P. Putnam’s Sons (February 25, 2020). ISBN: 978-0525542551. 384p.

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