A Is for Abbott: 'Collision' by Jeff Abbott

Starts strong with a blast of adrenaline. Ben and Emily are wrapping up their honeymoon in Hawaii; he slips into the shower, and Emily slips onto the kitchen floor -- shot. Dead. Fast forward a couple of years to a sniper scene in Austin and a hired assassin bumbles his assignment. Suddenly Ben and a former CIA agent are unlikely partners ... and the plot turns all kinds of crazy ways.
My friend David summarized it perfectly in his review for Booklist:
"The dialogue: smart, unobtrusive. The plot: packed, convoluted, head spinning. The everyman angle borrows from Abbot's hardcover debut, Panic (2005); neither book is memorable, but it hardly matters: if it is unbridled action you crave (or if you're just killing time till the next Lee Child comes out), Abbott's your man." (Reviewed by David Wright, Booklist, 5/1/2008)

My coworker Jeff said: "Quentin Tarantino meets Die Hard as the lives of two men literally collide" in his review for Library Journal. Snappy and memorable tagline.

I'm glad I tried this book and know more about Abbott, who also wrote a series in the 1990s starring a librarian/sleuth named Jordan Poteet (Promises of Home, Distant Blood).

Recommend to readers who like: James Patterson's stand-alone thrillers, David Baldacci, Stephen Cannell, James Grippando, and maybe to Lee Child fans.

Talk about Books: Four Big L’s

Laura Lippman and the Three Lisa’s – Lisa Gardner, Lisa Unger and Lisa Scottoline – are four mystery and suspense writers I depend on for page-turning stories with strong women characters.

In one month I read the newest titles from these four with a 75 percent success rate.
What the Dead Know by Lippman is her best stand-alone novel yet. (In fact, it deserves a separate blog entry. I’ll get right on that.) Hide by Lisa Gardner brings back D.D. Warren , a thinking woman’s kind of detective. Sliver of Truth, a follow up to Beautiful Lies, presents Ridley Jones, a magazine reporter still caught up in the mystery of her own identity.

But Daddy’s Girl? That’s the latest from Lisa Scottoline. I can’t believe I even read a book with that title (and check out that cover. Ug!). Natalie “Nat” Greco teaches law at Penn. She’s not exactly an inspired lecturer, and she offers even less when trying to save herself from being framed for a murder. Not only can I not believe I read a book with a title like this, I can’t believe I finished this one. Nat bumbles along – and not in an endearing way -- to the last page, making me wonder how she ever got a job at an Ivy League school, let alone as a main character in a Scottoline novel.