The Blood Price [Paperback]

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.

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

'A highly readable, inventive thriller' -- Publishers Weekly 'As the plot unfolded, I found myself constantly surprised. Jon Evans's plotting is excellent ... and at the end all the strands were tied up perfectly. I never wanted to put the book down.' -- Emily Barr on TRAIL OF THE DEAD 'In this haunting, suspense debut, Evans takes the reader on a page-turning adventure' -- Publishers Weekly on TRAIL OF THE DEAD 'You're hooked. Evans contrives to slip the necessary specialist net-head detail into the plot without being boring or patronising. He can also pin down a character with a few details deftly brushed in ... The characters are delightfully delineated by their speech patterns ...beautifully controlled ... not the least satisfying aspect of this pacy thriller for the 21st century is the way things go on happening until the last page.' -- The Times on TRAIL OF THE DEAD --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Paul Wood and his girlfriend, Talena, were just tourists in Sarajevo, a city still reeling from the aftermath of civil war. But an unexpected encounter makes them a desperate woman's only hope of escape. Now, to get her to safety, they must navigate through the minefield of warlords, criminals, and peacekeepers that is postwar Bosnia.

Pursued by brutal gangsters and unable to leave the country legally, Paul agrees to do a job for a shadowy group of people smugglers in exchange for safe passage. The smugglers seem friendly. The job seems harmless. But when he discovers the secrets seething beneath, the repercussions will propel him on a perilous journey around the world -- from a warlord's compound in lawless Albania, through the jungles of Latin America, and toward an explosive confrontation at the extraordinary Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert.

Jon Evans has backpacked through China, Japan, Indonesia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, New Guinea, India, Nepal, the Balkans, and, most recently, Iraq. Between journeys, he has worked for internet and software companies and now divides his time among America, Canada, and Europe.