Target
by Simon Kernick,
Random House, $38.99
Simon Kernick's previous novel Relentless was Britain's best-selling thriller of 2007. The title could just as well be used to describe his latest offering, Target.
When our protagonist Rob Fallon has a drunken fling with his best mate's girlfriend he knows it could turn out to
be a night he might regret.
Then a bizarre and violent chain of events leads to Rob almost paying for his indiscretions and his mate's girlfriend being abducted by a terrifying snatch squad.
In true Hitchcockian style, the authorities don't believe a word of Fallon's story and even the girl's father says she's enjoying a holiday abroad.
Things take an even more sinister turn when Fallon takes the police to the scene of the abduction and the apartment looks so immaculate it could be on the cover of House and Garden magazine.
While all around him start to think Fallon has lost the plot, author Kernick ploughs ahead and keeps up a dizzyingly fast pace.
Fallon faces lies, deception and cover-ups at every turn as he risks his life to unravel the truth.
The classic man alone struggling to uncover the truth behind a series of strange events while outnumbered and surrounded by deadly adversaries who will stop at nothing to prevent him is hardly original. Kernick, however, does a great job of making the extraordinary very believable.
As you read you find yourself sucked into a vortex of events along with the characters.
This may be the literary equivalent of white water rafting but it's a thrilling ride.
