- Paperback: 422 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers (Oct 11 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0060782366
- ISBN-13: 978-0060782368
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 13.6 x 2.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 340 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,618,458 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Albanian smugglers, Bosnian guerrillas and Central American drug dealers populate Evans's colorful transcontinental storyof self-preservation and harebrained derring-do (after Dark Places), starring Paul Wood, an unemployed 29-year-old computer programmer. Paul, a Canadian living in San Francisco, and his beautiful Croatian-born girlfriend, Talena, attempt to save their fraying relationship with a trip to Sarajevo. (The year is 2003.) There, Paul morphs into an inadvertent action-hero when he rescues a South Asian boy and returns him to his family. In the process, Paul encounters Sinisa, the ruthless head of a multimillion-dollar people-smuggling ring, whom he turns to again when Talena's childhood friend Saskia needs his help getting to America. But there's a catch: Wood must design a "hacker tracker" program for the deranged smuggler in exchange for Saskia's freedom. From Albania, where Paul works around the clock to complete the program, he, Talena and Saskia find their way home via Belize and Mexico (Sinisa embroils them in drug smuggling, too). Fast-forward three months, when Paul and his friends hunt down Sinisa and his goons at the Burning Man art festival in Nevada. Death and destruction ensue, of course, topping off this highly readable, inventive thriller,.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
The real appeal of Evans' hero, Paul Wood (who first appeared in the nail-biter Dark Places, 2004), is this: at the same time that he's working as a freelance Internet designer, hunted by enemies and saving an abused woman, he also feels that he's a slacker and a goof. This gives his latest suspense story an undercurrent of wry humor that should make readers care about what happens to this fully fleshed hero. Wood uses his computer skills to support his passion for traveling. The novel starts with Wood and his girlfriend in Sarajevo on a visit, which quickly spins into chaos when they stumble on a people-smuggling ring and discover that the girlfriend's sister is horrifically abused by her husband. This is a chase story (from Sarajevo to Albania to Latin America and then Nevada), but Wood backs up the suspense with insider information about the lands he's careening through. A fantastic read for armchair paranoids. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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
|
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.ca
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Twenty-first century global suspense, at last., Nov 12 2005
By antigone "wheelchair girl" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Blood Price (Paperback)
In recent years it's seemed like a lot of the authors in the international crime or espionage genre never quite made it out of the Cold War. At best, we've had Eighties themes of Central American drug smuggling, or terrorist plots that seem tame if you've been watching the TV news. While I've got a soft spot for the Cold War genre myself, it's to be hoped that today's authors could write about today's 'theater'.Evans' _Blood Price_ is so fresh you almost expect its events to show up in tomorrow's headlines. Readers don't get to shy away from today's ugly truths for much longer than protagonist Paul Balthazar Wood does, whether those truths are the aftermath of Sarajevo or the wreck that is Paul's relationship and career at the start of the book. Nor is Paul a former CIA agent or some other all-too-typical military hero; he's an out-of-work Canadian programmer, albeit with a few tours in the world backpacker and hiker scene, and the adventures from Evans' debut novel _Dark Places_.
From the Balkans to Burning Man, refugee smuggling to cyber-crime, _Blood Price_ spans the globe and an ever-widening range of topics that Evans clearly knows his way around. Despite brief digressions into the mechanics of computer programming in C, scuba, border crossings and even flamethrowers, Evans keeps the story moving without excessive technical lecturing - but also without tripping up on any details. (Unlike the average Hollywood movie, I can read Evans secure in the knowledge that Evans knows even more about how the Internet works than I do.)
The settings would make a Bond movie blush, and yet the action scenes come in realistically under budget. The characters are rounded and likeable - even when they shouldn't be; Evans has a genius for making you realize that the Bad Guys are, in fact, human. The heroes are human too, from moments of brutal suffering to unexpected comedy, tinged with adrenaline.
The novel's pace is engaging and interesting, maintaining a rate of tension even in the slower parts of the plot without seeming artificial. It's hard to say whether the very human drama of Evans' characters or the world-wide criminal empire's plans are more compelling; they are inevitably, inextricably linked.
If you're looking for hip, even savvy, current fiction without hipster pretension, Evans has it. If you'd rather have a fast-paced international crime thriller with a hero who's more brain than brawn, pick up _Blood Price_ for a satisfying read.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Compelling and thoroughly enjoyable read, Mar 4 2006
By natmicstef - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Blood Price (Paperback)
This book was so well written and actual events were woven into the storyline so believably that I was convinced until about half way through the book that it was a true story. It was also a reminder of how brutal the human race can be, no matter the nationality. The protaganist, Balthazar Wood is an irreverent but latterly idealistic computer programmer with a dry sense of humour and the story covers human smuggling, the fallout to people's lives and minds from war and relationship struggles. A great book.
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?
|
