Running from the Devil

This debut thriller by Jamie Freveletti will soon have her running with the big-name writers. A trial lawyer and marathon runner, Freveletti weaves a fast listen. Adding narrator Bernadette Dunne to the mix ensures that listeners will come away completely satisfied. While enroute to Colombia, heroine Emma escapes from a plane hijacking while her fellow passengers are held hostage. With a marathon runner's perseverance, she finds a government agent and pursues the hijackers with an unmatched tenacity. The story also has a few subplots to keep listeners on edge. Dunne's glib narration keeps pace with the fast-moving story, and her accents are credibly realistic. Thanks to both author and narrator, this mystery grabs listeners right from the beginning and holds on to the end. A.L.H. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

March 2, 2009
At the start of Freveletti’s less than impressive debut, a British Airways flight from Miami, Fla., to Bogotá carrying 30-year-old chemist Emma Caldridge crashes in the Colombian jungle. Armed men dressed in fatigues start taking the survivors hostage, but Caldridge manages to escape into the forest. A distress call from her cellphone reaches the U.S. government, which recently sent troops to Colombia to help guard an oil pipeline, as well as Darkview, a Blackwater-like outfit assisting the U.S. military with special ops around the world. Caldridge proves amazingly successful at dodging the bad guys, and even uses her professional training to derive digitalis from a plant for a fellow passenger who’ll die without it. Cameron Sumner, a member of a drug agency who had special reasons for being on the BA flight, provides the requisite romantic interest. Some may cheer the author’s larger-than-life heroine, but the clichéd action offers nothing thriller readers haven’t encountered countless times before.