Rating: ✪✪✪✪✪ out of 5
Stars
Release Date: February 2014
Author’s Website: http://www.patrickleefiction.com
Purchase Book U.S.: Amazon U.S.A.
Publisher’s Website: Penguin
My thoughts:
The first thing you will notice about “Runner”
by Patrick Lee is the striking cover (Australian/UK version)The next thing is that the hours have
gone by and you haven’t stopped reading. Time just runs away with this book.
It takes off from the first page at a gallop and
never stops. In the beginning, you’re reading a thriller, then it seamlessly morphs
into a techno sci-fi story. Last time I enjoyed a story in this genre as much, I
was reading a Michael Crichton (I really miss Crichton) book.
Sam Dryden, a highly skilled ex-special forces
soldier is taking an evening jog when he encounters eleven-year-old Rachel fleeing
heavily armed men who are trying to kill her. Sam’s instincts kick in and,
before he knows it, he’s helped the girl temporarily escape her pursuers.
However there’s something unusual about Rachel, and
Dryden finds himself in the middle of a mystery that he needs to solve to save
the girl. Rachel has no memory of her past except for the last two months, until Dryden begins to realize why she is the subject of the intensive search. She is a very special girl.
The secrets, danger, and pace don’t let up until
the end, which if you are anything like me will come not long after you start
reading. You literally cannot put this book down, a rare experience for me
lately. The perspective fluidly switches between Rachel and Sam and their pursuers, who utilize state of the art technology in their pursuit.
Co-incidentally while I was reading “Runner”
another avid reader friend told me about a great series that I must read as I was telling her about “Runner.” Turned out we were talking about books from the same author. So Lee’s trilogy
“The Breach Series” “is now high on my list of must-reads.” We're both now big fans of Patrick Lee. Excuse the cliché but run to your nearest book outlet and grab this book? Ready… set… go.
P.S. The red cover is the U.S. version. I much prefer the Australian/UK version. Its the reason I picked it up from my huge pile of review books.
Book Blurb:
Sam Dryden, retired special forces, lives a quiet
life in a small town on the coast of Southern California. While out on a run in
the middle of the night, a young girl runs into him on the seaside boardwalk.
Barefoot and terrified, she's running from a group of heavily armed men with
one clear goal—to kill the fleeing child. After Dryden helps her evade her
pursuers, he learns that the eleven year old, for as long as she can remember,
has been kept in a secret prison by forces within the government. But she
doesn't know much beyond her own name, Rachel. She only remembers the past two
months of her life—and that she has a skill that makes her very dangerous to these
men and the hidden men in charge.
Dryden, who lost his wife and young daughter in an
accident five years ago, agrees to help her try to unravel her own past and
make sense of it, to protect her from the people who are moving heaven and
earth to find them both. Although Dryden is only one man, he's a man with the
extraordinary skills and experience—as a Ranger, a Delta, and five years doing
off-the-book black ops with an elite team. But, as he slowly begins to
discover, the highly trained paramilitary forces on their heels is the only
part of the danger they must face. Will Rachel's own unremembered past be the
most deadly of them all?
Patrick was born in west Michigan in 1976. His
accomplishments over the next eighteen years
In his early
thirties he started writing novels, and managed to sign with the coolest agent
in the business: Janet Reid at FinePrint, who promptly sold the first two books
of the Travis Chase series to HarperCollins. Patrick's relatives expressed
relief that he probably wouldn't end up sleeping on their couches.
