Noble Lies

Starred review from July 16, 2007
Benoit (Out of Order
) is at the top of his game in his witty third novel as he once again explores the travails of Americans abroad. Mark Rohr, a first Gulf War veteran now bouncing for a bar in the coastal resort of Phuket, Thailand, is a natural action hero. The damsel in distress is the pretty, blonde and very American Robin Antonucci, who offers Mark $5,000 to help her locate her brother, Shawn Keller, missing since the mighty tsunami inundated Phuket. Naturally, nothing and no one is exactly what it seems as Mark and Robin, linked by mutual distrust and different needs, visit dives and diving shops, deal with gangsters and pirates and manage to stir up trouble everywhere they look. Benoit’s good guys have their faults and the bad guys have surprising virtues, leaving room for lots of unusual twists and turns. The lovingly rendered exotic locale is the perfect setting for this rough and rollicking story of adventure and romance.

August 1, 2007
Mark Rohr is a veteran of Desert Storm, but in the 10 years since the first Gulf War, his life has drifted into purposelessness. Now hes working as a bouncer in a bar-slash-brothel in Phuket City, Thailand. Recovering from a hangover, he is surprised to hear a knock on his door and downright shocked to find a beautiful American woman, Robin Antonucci, who wants to hire him to find her brother, Shawn (who is, she says, missing but still alive somewhere in Thailand). Mark figures its a dead-end job: the guy is either dead or alive, but if hes alive, he doesnt want to be found. But soon after Mark and Robin meet a woman who claims to be Shawns wife, theyre on the run from a ruthless gangster, with the woman and her family in tow, forcing Markto call on his long-buried military training to keep them all alive. This is a very good thriller, excitingly written with well-drawn characters, dialogue that rings true, and a story thats suspenseful and tragic.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)