Downfall

May 13, 2013
Bestseller Abbott packs a lifetime of thrills and suspense into a mere five days in his convoluted third novel featuring former CIA agent Sam Capra (after 2011’s The Last Minute). Soon after terrified Diana Keene hurries into Sam’s San Francisco bar pleading for help, two sinister-looking men enter the place looking for her. One of them pulls a knife and attacks Sam, but in the ensuing fight the thug suffers a fatal stab wound. Sam learns Diana is being sought by agents of John Belias, who controls a widespread network of powerful and deadly agents, including Diana’s mother, Janice Keene. Abbott excels at spinning complex webs of intrigue combining psychological twists and abundant action, though the sheer number of players and their ultimate loyalties can be difficult to track. Sam is both pawn and knight in an exciting chess game that moves from San Francisco to Portland, Ore.; Denver; Las Vegas; and Chicago. Agent: Peter Ginsberg, Curtis Brown.

July 15, 2013
Nothing in Sam Capra's three short years in the CIA could have prepared him for the series of high-stakes conspiracies he's encountered since then (The Last Minute, 2012, etc.), including this tale of a ruthless Mephisto who promises to fulfill his minions' dreams if only they'll kill at his command. Since getting forced out of the CIA, Sam Capra, 26, has opened dozens of bars around the world. So it's actually statistically likely that he'd be sitting in one of them, San Francisco's The Select, when a pair of strangers tries to kill a young woman before his eyes. Ever chivalrous, Sam comes to Diana Keene's aid, and by the end of the episode, Grigori Rostov is dead and Glenn Marchbanks seriously wounded. Diana's troubles spring from those of her mother, whose successful public relations firm is founded on a fateful deal she cut with John Belias, a modern-day Prince of Darkness. For a price to be named later, Belias arranges through his network of intermediaries for the failure of his associates' business rivals. In Janice Keene's case, the current price is the assassination of three well-known figures in Portland, Las Vegas and Chicago. Though her oncologist has already pronounced her death sentence, Janice soldiers on in the fatuous hope of leaving her daughter a better life. Diana begins to make inquiries that bring her to the attention of Belias' other assassins. And this is just for starters. There'll be many more betrayals, double crosses, noble/dumb sacrificial gestures, orders from A to B to eliminate C, false suspicions that specific killers have killed people that they don't happen to have killed and, the most original feature here, violent deaths of people readers thought were keepers. The criminal mastermind manages to be both repellent and uninteresting, and it's hard to root for anyone, including Sam, when everyone's basically under compulsion to eliminate everyone else. Maybe Abbott and his hapless hero should move on to a new formula.

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July 1, 2013

Abbott's third Sam Capra thriller (after Last Minute) is almost nonstop action with bullets and fists flying throughout and a steadily mounting body count to match. Capra is in San Francisco, checking up on the bar he owns there as cover for his clandestine work for the shadowy Round Table. When a beautiful young woman runs into his bar, chased by two men, Capra chivalrously charges to her rescue. After the melee, a Russian lies dead by Capra's hand and the girl and her other pursuer have vanished. In trying to discover the girl's whereabouts and her pursuer's identity, Capra uncovers another secret network, whose leader has deadly plans in motion at the highest level, and it is up to Capra and his Round Table contacts to thwart him. VERDICT There are enough fights and chases for several blockbuster movies in this thriller, which should please adrenaline junkies. Those seeking something deeper should look elsewhere.--Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Lib., Wisconsin Rapids

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2013
A middle-aged woman, the CEO of a global PR firm who has just been diagnosed with an aggressive cancer, moonlights as a hit woman for a shadowy cabal. Why? Readers won't find out immediately, but the world Abbott creates is filled with cabals: wealthy, influential people ceaselessly trying to tilt every playing field, whether financial or political, to their advantage. Former CIA agent Sam Capra (The Last Minute, 2012) is now employed by the Round Table, an equally shadowy group of the wealthy and powerful people who have banded together to thwart such evildoers. Sam becomes the tip of the Round Table's spear, but even he doesn't understand the big picture, even as he dashes from one dangerous clash to the next. Eventually, Abbott fills everyone in on the Faustian machinations of a world-class bad guy named Belias. Downfall features many engaging, conflicted characters; plenty of betrayal; and enough unrelenting action, unfurled at a breakneck pace, to fill another Jason Bourne trilogy. Thriller fans will love it.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)