Killer Weekend

May 14, 2007
B
estseller Pearson's workmanlike thriller, the first in a new series, has all the right ingredients: a down-to-earth hero, sheriff Walt Fleming; a neatly focused venue in the form of a weekend business conference at an Idaho resort; and a sense of impending danger in the form of a threat on the life of Elizabeth Shaler, the New York State attorney general, who's about to announce her candidacy for U.S. president. Shaler knows what it's like to be a victim. Eight years before the “killer weekend” of the title, she was attacked in her Sun Valley, Idaho, vacation home and saved by Fleming, then a patrolman. Fleming takes the present threat very seriously, but Shaler's handlers and the event's organizer, billionaire Patrick Cutter, won't cancel her speech. Fleming doggedly struggles to identify the assassin, who cleverly (if incredibly) overcomes massive security to infiltrate the event, but the motive for the threat is never satisfactorily explained. Pearson (Parallel Lies
) tries hard to give his characters depth using an inventive array of backstories, but only the capable Fleming really comes across. 10-city author tour.

Starred review from May 1, 2007
Pearson takes a break from his young adult flights of fancy with Dave Barry (e.g., "Peter and the Starcatchers") to concoct a brilliant and fascinating adult thriller. Sun Valley, ID, has become the hot spot for the rich and famous to cavort, and County Sheriff Walt Fleming realizes that is just a routine part of his job. When the attorney general of the United States arrives for a conference to announce her candidacy for president, Fleming finds his hands full maintaining both security and his sanity. An assassin has targeted the attorney general and plans to use the conference to obtain his objective while hiding in plain sight. Small-town mentality collides with "Day of the Jackal" in this amazing bookPearson's first with Putnam and a series opener. While his Peter Pan books are good, it is nice to see Pearson back in the thriller fold, where few come close to his prowess. For all fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 3/1/07.]Jeff Ayers, Seattle P.L.

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2007
Eight years ago, Sun Valley, Idaho, sheriff Walt Fleming bravely thwarted an attempt on Attorney General Elizabeth Shaler's life. Now AG Shaler is back in town, poised to announce her candidacy for president at a three-day conference catering to the world's most prominent business leaders. The event is the brainchild of Patrick Cutter, a tycoon whose sybaritic lifestyle is a source of both scorn and awe. (He is but one example of the super-rich citizenry that's taken up residence in the once-quiet ski town.) There is no shortage of security for the proceedings--local police, Secret Service, and Cutter's own team--but it's not enough to deter a cunning assassin who slips seamlessly between a pair of identities. (His blind-man act is particularly impressive.) Meanwhile, Sheriff Fleming must cope with the suspicious death of a beautiful socialite and the breakup of his own marriage; it doesn't help matters that his deputy is sleeping with his ex-wife. This is the first in a new series for Pearson, whose cleverly interwoven plots and crisp, economical prose have graced more than a dozen thrillers, most notably the Lou Boldt-Daphne Matthews series. Pearson is the first American recipient of the Raymond Chandler/Fulbright Fellowship in detective fiction at Oxford University. The late, great creator of Philip Marlowe would be proud--both of the selection itself and of the recipient's latest work.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)