- Audio Cassette
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio; Abridged edition (Jan 1 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0671046438
- ISBN-13: 978-0671046439
- Product Dimensions: 18.1 x 10.6 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 172 g
- Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
This tour de force by the author of Manhattan Nocturne is a genre-bending literary thriller that deserves all the pre-publishing buzz it's received. From the prologue, set in the closing days of the Vietnam War, to the denouement 25 years later in the meatpacking district of Manhattan, it crackles with electricity and keeps the reader pinned in place; this is a book that's truly impossible to put down.
Harrison's three protagonists are so well drawn that their individual obsessions rather than his complex plot seem to drive the narrative. Former fighter pilot Charlie Ravich is a wealthy telecommunications CEO desperate to perpetuate his name by any means, including a surrogate mother; his only son is dead and his daughter is infertile. Christina Welles is an Ivy League-educated mathematics whiz who went to prison for her role in a Mafia theft ring. And Rick Bocca, Christina's former lover, is hiding from the mob boss who has arranged Christina's early release to regain the millions he believes she stole from him. Harrison's observations are acute: he can describe the most horrific torture as deftly as he can write a tender love scene. But his ability to weave the separate stories of his main characters together without sacrificing a bit of momentum is truly dazzling; all three of them live in the mind long after the novel's harrowing climax. This is the real "afterburn" of the title, although it may get a second definition if the book makes as rapid an ascent to the top of the bestseller lists as it deserves. --Jane Adams --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Writing like an angel, Harrison in his new thriller (after Manhattan Nocturne) casts human existence as demonic, in a scenario as fierce as any imagined by Goya. The horror begins as American pilot Charlie Ravich is taken prisoner in 1972 in Vietnam, to be rescued by GIs who maim him in the process. Jumping to the present, the narrative focuses on another prisoner, Christina Welles, suffering behind bars in upstate New York for her role in a mob-directed theft ring. Charlie, too, is in pain; though now a wealthy electronics mogul, he's under attack both professionally, by larcenous contractors and a rival firm (like Harrison's Bodies Electric, this is a finance thriller as well as a crime novel), and personally--his wife is exhibiting signs of Alzheimer's, and he mourns the death of his only son. Then there's Rick Bocca, Christina's lover, inadvertently responsible for her imprisonment; he's hiding from the mob on Long Island, good as dead. When the mob, looking for $5 million that Christina stole from them in her final heist, engineers her release in hopes of snatching her to retrieve their loot, Harrison sets in motion a daringly complex tale of chase-and-hunt, of villainy, sacrifice and redemption, that unites these three main figures, and the gangsters who will go to any length--including monstrous torture, detailed by Harrison to the point of sensationalism--to get their money. As smartly orchestrated as the action is, it's Harrison's achingly real characters who empower the novel, as well as his prose: is there a noir novelist alive who can match his wattage? That's not always a virtue, though, as Harrison too often lets rip passages that, though rhapsodic or acutely observant, retard narrative flow. If not always expertly paced, however, the novel astonishes throughout, as much for its moral force as for its storytelling dazzle. 100,000 first printing; author tour; audio rights to Simon & Schuster. (Jan.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Couldn't put it down.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Afterburn: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)
I finished it at 6 a.m., got up at noon and explored the first 20 Amazon reader reviews. Am relieved that so many gave Colin Harrison the on-target swiftkick I think he deserves for this.I didn't appreciate the author's determination to punish, re-punish, and then re-re-punish Charlie...for what? Vietnam? Yes, I wonder too what vets think of it. Then of course, Charlie had to be punished (no...TORTURED) some more for his first-time stray into adultery at age 58, and for wanting another child, and for making the $8 million by the death of a Chinese superbillionaire. UNFORGIVABLE. Charlie was apparently a worse person, in the author's judgement, than Tony Verducci who skipped out of the story at the end untouched by any of it - he even got his money back. And of course, no one actually RESPONSIBLE for Vietnam was highlighted and punished. God is often cruel, it seems to us, so when you play God by writing a novel, you outta be nicer than God, not meaner, you silly (expletive deleted). God at least has a Plan, and strange cases of fairness and retribution in the right corners crop up all the time in real life, courtesy of FATE. Colin Harrison had no plan after all, except to create in order to pointlessly destroy. BUMMER is too good a word for the ending, so is SUCKS; yet it doesn't rate more careful words than those. As for Mr. Colin Harrison...he'll read our reviews (these writers do read our comments, avidly!) and persuade himself to be proud that he wrenched from us such reactions, even if the reactions are terribly negative. And he'll be kidding himself. For the record, I am female. For the record, I liked Rick almost as much as Charlie, and hated Christina.
1.0 out of 5 stars
A Waste of Paper and Time,
By "drgonzo79" (Costa Mesa, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Afterburn: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)
I am at a complete loss as to how anyone could have liked this book. .... The author goes through great lengths to set up these characters and their lives (hundreds of pages of overly descriptive prose about asian finance, artifical ensemination and retirement homes), and all for absolutely no reason. Almost none of it had any bearing what-so-ever on the story or ultimately on the fate of the characters. ....
1.0 out of 5 stars
Burning is too good for this book!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Afterburn: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)
I didn't waste much money on this .25 for the record, but the time is another thing. I can't think of one redeeming quality in this book. I guess bad guys always win? One reader asked wonder what vets think of this. The part that covered his military service was just the prologue so not much to base an opinion on. I do wish I had read these reviews first as this book certainly left a bad taste in my mouth. How it gets the raves printed on the first couple pages is a mystery to me.
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