Severance Package

March 17, 2008
At the start of this violent and intense noir and espionage hybrid from Swierczynski (The Blonde
), David Murphy, the CEO of a Philadelphia financial company, summons his seven staffers for an important Saturday meeting, where he informs them that the business is being shut down, and that unfortunately he has to kill them all. Every escape route from the 36th-floor office has been sealed off or rigged with lethal sarin gas. Suddenly, mousy Molly Lewis pulls out a gun and puts a slug in Murphy’s head. The resulting chaos sets off a panicked scramble, as the reader gradually learns that the business is a front for a covert intelligence group called CI-6. Thousands of miles away in Scotland, two men monitor “Molly Lewis,” who’s actually a highly trained Polish operative named Ania Kuczun, as she performs her own private audition, which involves the systematic elimination of her co-workers using a truly imaginative array of methods. This action fest moves swiftly to its darkly satisfying conclusion.

May 1, 2008
The best word to describe Swierczynski's ("The Blonde") latest thriller is "frenetic", and even that is likely an understatement. Jamie DeBroux is unhappy about being called in to work on a Saturday morning. But things get much worse when Jamie's boss tells him and his coworkers that he's called them into the office for the purpose of killing them all. While Jamie has served as media relations director for what he believed to be a financial services group, he's the only employee unaware that the company's a cover for an intelligence agency. Within minutes of that fateful Saturday meeting, two people are dead, and the remaining employees are left to square off against one of their own in an attempt to survive. Death and violence arrive in the first chapter and continue throughout; the graphic content is plentiful, mixed with an equal dose of black humor to lighten the tone. While not for everyone, this single-sitting thrill ride should find some readers in public libraries. [See Prepub Mystery, "LJ" 7/07.]Craig Shufelt, Fort McMurray P.L., Alta.

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2007
Swierczynski (The Blonde, 2006) writes a brand of thriller whose pacing forces us to reexamine our casual use of the word breakneck. (His books are sometimes literally breakneck, toofor the characters.) His usual mode is to take a Hollywood high-concept idea and a Hollywood-ish cast of characters, then hit the panic button so we can watch them scramble for safety. In Severance Package, some seeming office drones come to the office on Saturday for a special meetingonly to have their boss inform them that theyre about to be terminated. Literally. The ensuing fight for survival recalls the now-old joke about Die Hard in a building: though theres some backstory about warring, top-secret agencies, this is essentially one long action scene that begs for the next Tarantino to direct. But if that sounds like faint praise, it isnt: there are both enough clich' killers and comedy to make us raise two thumbs up. If you want your thrillers to be, well, thrilling, pop a big bowl of cornyou wont leave your seat until the end.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)