Nerve Damage

January 15, 2007
In this gripping political suspense novel from Edgar-finalist Abrahams (Echo Falls
), Vermont sculptor Roy Valois has never recovered from the tragic death of his beloved wife, Delia, in a helicopter accident while on a humanitarian mission to Honduras. Delia worked for the Hobbes Institute, "a think tank specializing in third-world economic problems." Roy's internal scars have kept him at a distance from others, even as the effects of asbestos exposure in his youth begin to ravage his body. When a chance remark leads Roy to search out the text of his already written obituary for the New York Times
, he finds a minor error concerning the Hobbes Institute. That niggling loose thread obsesses the artist, but his efforts to set the record straight reveal that much of what he knew about his wife was a lie. The action and suspense are first-rate, but fans may find fewer insights into human nature than in such brilliant earlier books as Oblivion
and End of Story
.