Safe House

Starred review from October 8, 2012
Set on the Isle of Man, this beautifully plotted thriller from Ewan (The Good Thief’s Guide to Venice and three other mysteries starring professional thief Charlie Howard) offers as many twists and turns as motorcycle enthusiast Rob Hale encounters during the British dependency’s annual TT (Tourist Trophy) time-trial races. After a motorcycle accident catapults Rob into the hospital, he learns there’s no evidence that Lena, the attractive blonde he’d just met who was riding on the back of his bike, ever existed. Determined to prove Lena wasn’t a figment of his imagination, Rob teams with PI Rebecca Lewis in an investigation that becomes increasingly convoluted and dangerous as they uncover links to the suicide of Rob’s sister, Laura, a few weeks earlier and unearth surprising secrets about the mysterious Lena. Meanwhile, a number of ruthless players work at cross purposes, and Rob and Rebecca take a lot of hard knocks at their hands. Ewan’s carefully placed clues will elicit several “aha” moments from readers as his heroes battle toward understanding and resolution. Agent: Valerie Borchardt, the Georges Borchardt Literary Agency.

November 15, 2012
A London private eye helps a distraught accident victim prove his implausible story. Rob Hale wakes up in a hospital on the isolated Isle of Man with little memory of the motorcycle accident that landed him there. As his mental fog clears, he asks about his friend Lena, who was with him and whom he saw being taken away by the first ambulance on the scene. A pair of slightly patronizing police detectives question Rob the next day, but they clearly believe that he's delusional or lying. True, Rob has been emotionally unsteady since the unexpected death of his sister, Laura, who recently drove off a cliff near London. Nor does it help that in his description, Lena bears a strong resemblance to Laura. Luckily, Rob's parents have hired a tough London investigator, Rebecca Lewis, to look into the circumstances surrounding Laura's death. She comes to the island to question Rob and, refreshingly, believes him. Meanwhile, the reader learns that Lena indeed exists, held captive aboard a boat by a creepy pair, Menser and Clarke. With local police unable or unwilling to pursue any leads, Rebecca and Rob team up. They fly to London, getting their first solid bit of evidence from wealthy but suspicious Erik Zeeger, owner of SuperZ Oil. Their trail is twisty, leading them through many offbeat characters to a connection between Laura and Lena, whose life hangs by a thread. Ewan (The Good Thief's Guide to Venice, 2011, etc.) delivers with an amped-up first-person narrative from the appealing Rob and a swift, if shaggy, plot.

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

November 1, 2012
When Rob Hale regains consciousness after crashing his motorcycle, he finds himself in the middle of a mystery. Lena, the young women who was with him on the cycle ride, has gone missing, leaving no signs of her existence, with authorities questioning the accuracy of Rob's memory. But Rob finds an ally in London private investigator Rebecca Lewis, who's been summoned by Rob's mother after the apparent suicide of his sister, Laura, just weeks earlier. Together Rebecca and Rob uncover a dangerous labyrinth of cover-ups and corruption that proves to have links to Laura's secret life and puts their lives at risk. Rob Hale is a plumber, an Everyman who begins to trust no one as he becomes an inadvertent but canny player in an operation with extremely high stakes. Ewan, author of the Good Thief series of lighthearted capers, adds depth in this much more serious stand-alone, set on the Isle of Man, his home turf. With its well-structured plot, crisp dialogue, and moral ambiguities, this is a compelling mystery that could win him new fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)