The Price You Pay

by Aidan Truhen | Mystery & Thrillers |
ISBN: 9781788160094 Global Overview for this book
Registered by wingGoryDetailswing of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 3/24/2023
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1 journaler for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by wingGoryDetailswing from Nashua, New Hampshire USA on Friday, March 24, 2023
I got this ex-library UK-edition softcover from Better World Books, for another release copy. ["Aidan Truhen" is a pseudonym of Nicholas Cornwell, aka Nick Harkaway, son of John le Carré!] I loved the follow-on book Seven Demons, due in large part to the audiobook narrator's performance, but now that I know how Jack *should* sound I think I can read this book in the same voice!

The premise: at this point in his career, Jack hasn't met the Demons yet, but has built a successful career as a kind of drug middleman - including careful attention to keeping lots of assets completely separate from each other, controlling who knows what about him (ideally, nothing at all), that kind of thing. He's formed a casual relationship with an elderly neighbor in his apartment building, and when she's murdered in what seems to be an attempt to get back at *him*, he... takes umbrage. But as he delves into who might be behind these attacks, he finds that lo! he's been presented to the infamous international assassins the Seven Demons as their next contract, and it's going to take all his cleverness to see tomorrow...

Knowing that not only will he survive but that he'll wind up leading the Demons (the ones that survive this novel, anyway!) does help a bit with the tension, but the real fun of the books is the narrative style - Jack's patter and snark, and the sometimes surreal/silly (while also highly violent) action scenes. (I won't give away all the delicious schemes, but there's one involving a splashy-proposal setup, drones, and liquid nitrogen... yeah, Jack's inventive!)

The tension ratchets up with each new confrontation, and there's a LOT of collateral damage - including the deaths of many innocents who just happened to be in the way of this escalating situation. This should make Jack a less-sympathetic character, though he is better at avoiding unnecessary (to him) deaths than his adversaries are - but he's described in-story as a narcissistic sociopath and it's hard to argue with that. But he's just so darned fascinating, and clever, and fun to listen to... (I wonder how he and Tom Ripley would have gotten on if they'd ever met. Hmm. Tom tended to work on a much smaller scale, but I think he'd have appreciated Jack's talents.)

Released 12 mos ago (3/31/2023 UTC) at Little Free Library, Starknaught Hts in Gloucester, Massachusetts USA

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

I left this book and its sequel in this new-to-me Little Free Library; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in MA here.]

** Released for the 2023 Oh, the Places We Can Go challenge, for the town of Price, Utah. **

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