City of Windows

June 1, 2019
The FBI brings in astrophysicist, amputee, and former agent Dr. Lucas Page when a sniper takes aim in the middle of a New York blizzard. It's almost Christmas, and Columbia professor Lucas Page is looking forward to getting away from his students and spending a couple of weeks with his wife, Erin, a pediatric surgeon, and their four, soon to be five, adoptive children. It's not to be. A sniper has killed Lucas' old FBI partner, Doug Hartke, and Special Agent in Charge Brett Kehoe asks Lucas to use his unusual talent to tell him where the shot came from. It's been a decade since the incident that nearly killed Lucas and cost him an arm, a leg, and an eye, but he can still pull off what, to others, seems like an impossible trick: In a blink, he can see the city as a "matrix of interconnected digits, a mosaic of numbers that stretched to the horizon." It's a singular talent that makes him a hot commodity in what turns out to be a doozy of a case. After all, making the shot that killed Doug Hartke "would be like trying to thread a needle while riding a mechanical bull set to Motörhead." The eerily talented sniper continues to take out cops at an inhuman pace, and the FBI has a suspect, but Lucas doesn't believe they've got the right guy and enlists a few of his sharpest students to help him find a connection between the victims. The cat-and-mouse game that follows takes Lucas to his limits and beyond and puts his family firmly in the crosshairs. Investing in Dr. Lucas Page and his extraordinary family is ridiculously easy, and, crankiness aside, he has a solid core of decency that shines through. Lucas is surrounded by genuinely interesting supporting characters, such as his de facto partner Agent Whitaker, who has a preternatural talent for anticipating what Lucas is thinking, and Dingo, a fellow amputee and former BBC combat photographer who lives over the Pages' garage. Keep an eye out for a heart-pounding sequence involving Dingo and an actual broadsword. Pobi's (American Woman, 2014, etc.) keen attention to the mechanics and challenges involved in having multiple prostheses is a plus, although readers will have to wait to find out more about the incident that caused Lucas' life-altering injuries. Relentless pacing, tight plotting, and a brainy, idiosyncratic new hero make this one a winner.

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Starred review from June 10, 2019
Brilliant astrophysicist Lucas Page, the distinctive hero of this outstanding series launch from Pobi (American Woman), used to be an FBI agent who could survey a crime scene and automatically convert the topography to geometric forms and numbers. This ability would allow him, for example, to pinpoint the origin of a gunshot in the middle of a city. Then the loss of a leg, an arm, and an eye in a shoot-out put an end to his FBI career and his first marriage, but his mental acuity remained. Ten years later, Lucas teaches at Columbia University and writes books; he and his second wife are raising five foster children. When Lucas’s former FBI partner, Doug Hartke, is fatally shot by a sniper while driving in Midtown Manhattan, he reluctantly agrees to help FBI special agent Brett Kehoe track down the culprit. Lucas quickly determines the sniper’s rooftop location, but it was a close to impossible shot, “like trying to thread a needle while riding a mechanical bull set to Motörhead.” More shootings occur, and the victims’ only connections are law enforcement careers. The tense plot is balanced by the prickly Lucas’s cerebral investigating skills. This promises to be Pobi’s breakout thriller. Agent: Jill Marr, Sandra Dijkstra Literary.

June 28, 2019

Pobi (American Woman; Bloodman) launches a new series featuring retired FBI agent, astrophysicist, and double amputee Dr. Lucas Page, who is summoned back to the FBI after a sniper kills his former partner. Frustration mounts as the killings continue and the politicians and bureaucrats want to implicate a radical Islamic sympathizer despite evidence to the contrary. Page, with his unique ability to see things using numbers and patterns, takes the investigation in a different direction, finding a connection among the victims to home in on a killer seeking revenge. This title has all that a good thriller/police procedural should: a ruthless villain always a step ahead of a gruff and often unlikable hero, both of whom have seemingly preternatural abilities; internal agency squabbles; a snowstorm that hampers the investigation; and plenty of twists and turns in the plot. Readers get just enough background on Page's upbringing and early career to leave open the possibility that the next book in the series will be a prequel. VERDICT A fast-paced, topical thriller that checks the boxes in the genre, perhaps a little automatically. Will appeal to fans of John Sandford, Lee Child, and Brian Freeman. [See Prepub Alert, 2/11/19.]--George Lichman, Rocky River, OH

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