Cutting Edge

November 27, 2017
Larsen opens this high-energy thriller with the tantalizing line: “The second time he died was more difficult than the first.” Petty officer Trey DeBolt, an Alaska-based Coast Guard rescue swimmer, regains consciousness in a remote seaside cottage in Maine after a horrific accident that has left him with a scar on the back of his head and no memory of how he got there. His nurse, Joan Chandler, tells him: “The surgery you had, Trey... it wasn’t only to make you well. It was to make you different.” Shortly afterward, DeBolt witnesses Chandler gunned down by a five-man team of trained assassins and realizes that he was the killers’ real target. Thus begins a game of wits with his hunters and his dawning realization of just how “different” he has become. The plot has some truly surprising twists and turns, yet, for all the book’s speed and excitement, the author also skillfully slips in some thought-provoking ideas on technology and greed. Readers will hope for a sequel. Agent: Susan Gleason, Susan Gleason Literary.

January 1, 2018
Trey DeBolt remembers being on a Coast Guard helicopter but not the aircraft's crash. He wakes up in a cabin about 3,000 miles from where the accident occurred, and the nurse tending to him will not provide the answers he seeks. As he recovers, he learns that he has been declared officially dead; meanwhile, vivid images are popping into his head of things that later prove to be amazingly accurate. When a hit squad attacks the cabin, and the nurse is shot, he is barely able to escape. As he tries to find the truth and stay alive, he slowly uncovers a secret government project in which he appears to play a key part. Readers will be intrigued with trying to decipher what is actually going on in this tantalizingly plotted thriller. Just when it appears that DeBolt has landed in a situation out of Stephen King's Misery, the story slides into the world of government conspiracy. What results is a fine thrill ride, further indication that Larsen's name on the cover of a book guarantees an engrossing read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)