- Hardcover: 356 pages
- Publisher: Hyperion (July 2 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0786865644
- ISBN-13: 978-0786865642
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 612 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,357,268 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Penzler Pick, June 2001: Ridley Pearson, who has written 14 previous books, many of them featuring his Seattle cop Lou Boldt, ups the ante in his latest thriller.
Northern Union Railroad has been experiencing a series of accidents with their freight trains, but it is not until they find a freight car covered with blood that they call in outside help. Peter Tyler used to be a cop until he nearly beat a black man to death and lost his badge. When he gets a second chance via an old friend at the National Transportation Safety Board, he drives a convertible through a snowstorm with the top down (he suffers from claustrophobia) to view the freight car. He arrives at the scene to discover that he will have to deal with Northern Union's own security officer, Nell Priest, a black woman who already knows Tyler's history.
Meanwhile, Umberto Alvarez, the train wrecker, is systematically working his way towards his ultimate wreck, Northern's F.A.S.T. train due to make its maiden run from New York to Washington, D.C. Alvarez lost his wife and children when their car stalled between the gates at a crossing and were crushed by one of Northern's trains. Although Northern Union was cleared of all responsibility and Alvarez's wife was found negligent, he doesn't think that's so.
As Peter Tyler's investigation proceeds, he begins to come to the same conclusion. Closing in on Alvarez, he tries to interview the crossing guard who was on duty the day the wreck occurred. On arriving at the man's apartment, he finds the man bludgeoned to death--with the same stick with which Tyler beat the black man all that time ago. It's time to get paranoid. Who at Northern is covering up and what role does Nell play in all this? As always in a Ridley Pearson thriller, the action doesn't stop until the final page. --Otto Penzler
From Publishers Weekly
Pearson forsakes his franchise character, Seattle police detective Lou Boldt, for a railroad thriller that wobbles on its tracks. The hero here is Peter Tyler, a former Washington, D.C., homicide cop who was fired many say unjustly for beating a child-abuse suspect. Desperate for money, Tyler gets thrown a bone by an old friend who handles investigations for the National Transportation Safety Board. Handed a three-day contract, Tyler is assigned to check out a messy murder aboard a boxcar on a Northern Union Railroad line in rural Illinois. Nothing about the murder makes sense, but more intriguing to Tyler are the persistent rumors about why so many NUR trains have derailed in the past year. When Tyler turns up a suspect not only for the murder but also the derailments, he quickly finds that his services are no longer needed. Helped only by a railroad security officer, the lovely Nell Priest, Tyler follows the trail to New York City. That's where he believes the murderous vandal, who's seeking revenge for the railroad-related deaths of his wife and twin daughters, plans to sabotage the grand opening of NUR's most ambitious project: a bullet train connecting New York with the nation's capital. Pearson (Middle of Nowhere) keeps up his usual breakneck pace, and for excitement alone, his latest is good fun. But the story is marred by several false notes, imponderable plot twists and a clumsily executed love affair giving a squishy feel to an otherwise hard-edged thriller. Of greater concern, however, is Tyler. He simply never emerges as a character of substance or distinction. (July)Forecast: Despite Pearson's bestselling clout, a major/ad promo campaign and an eight-city author tour, tepid reviews and weak word of mouth may limit sales of this lackluster, Boldt-less effort.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
The train charged forward in the shimmering afternoon sunlight, autumn's vibrant colors forming a natural lane for the raised bed of chipped rock and the few hundred tons of steel and wood. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
The train charged forward in the shimmering afternoon sunlight, autumn's vibrant colors forming a natural lane for the raised bed of chipped rock and the few hundred tons of steel and wood. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Riding the rails with Parallel Lies by Ridley Pearson,
By Kevin Tipple (Plano, Texas) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Parallel Lies (Hardcover)
In this recent novel, Ridley Pearson deals with the American railroad system and a search for vengeance. Umberto Alvarez lost his family to death when a train crushed their car at a gated crossing. He knows the Northern Union Railroad is covering up the truth and he wants a public apology for the deaths they caused. Systematically, he has managed to derail freight trains of Northern Union's every six weeks or so as he works to the ultimate destruction of a test of a high-speed passenger carrying train.Peter Tyler is the investigator for the National Transportation Board and has his own inner demons to deal with. After a long and distinguished police career, Peter met up with a child molester as the creep was bashing the bay's head against the wall. Something snapped deep inside him and Peter began to beat the molester's head against the wall, just like he had done to the baby. While understandable, Peter's actions became part of a media firestorm since the molester was black and Peter was white. In the aftermath, Peter with his reputation savaged in the media, lost his job, his career, his family and is days away from eviction. So, when tossed temporary work to investigate a current derailment, he leaps at the chance and he has to make it work. The trail will lead him cross country as he discovers the clash between corporate greed, politics and the quest of one man to find vengeance from those who have wronged him. While these are fairly stock characters and Mr. Pearson does not plow new ground that has not been covered better in his other novels, this is still a fairly good read. The action is fast paced and the premise is all too plausible today. For more information on this book as well as his many other books visit his website at www.ridleypearson.com.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Parallel Lies,
By Leticia (California) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Parallel Lies (Mass Market Paperback)
I dont read very many books. In fact I could say none at all, but once I read Parallel Lies, I could not put the book down. The suspense in this book kept me reading. I really enjoyed reading this book and recommend this to everyone to read.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Above average,
By
This review is from: Parallel Lies (Mass Market Paperback)
Some places in the story are slow to read, otherwise it was a good read overall. Makes you feel for the guy who did the derailments because the railroad company killed his family with a major cover-up. This story could be made into a good movie.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
