Entertaining escapism. East to read page turners.

Our fantasy hero, Stone Barrington, is back in the sunshine ➙ Key West. Hired to locate the missing son of a very wealthy man.

He walks into a bar. And the guy is there!

Lucky, right?

Nope. The guy’s girlfriend hits Stone on the head in the parking lot. And the chase is on.

As always, beautiful women jump into bed with Stone right after he meets them. Many soon dump him … or are murdered.

This one is slightly more elaborately crafted. Twists and turns.

At least half of the books I read are too slow.

Run (2014) may be the fastest paced thriller I can recall. 😀

I really enjoyed it.

Marc Bowman, a highly successful computer consultant and software designer, walks into his job at a major tech company one morning only to find himself fired on the spot, stonewalled by his boss, and ushered out of the building.

Then things get worse: An explosive argument drives his wife away and a robbery threatens to yank a million-dollar idea—and his whole future—out from under him.

In a matter of hours, Marc has gone from having it all to being sucker-punched by fate. But it’s only Monday, and before the week is over, he’ll be stalked, ambushed, wiretapped, arrested, duped, double- and triple-crossed—until he can’t tell enemies from allies.
 
Suddenly, the only thing standing between him and the wrath of everyone from the FBI to Homeland Security to his desperate ex-bosses is a flash drive full of data that might just be the holy grail of high-tech secrets—and a holy terror in the wrong hands.

Now, as the gloves come off and the guns come out, turning back is hopeless and giving up is madness. The only person left for Marc to trust is himself. And the only thing left to do is keep running—or end up a dead man walking.

Andrew Grant (born 1968) is an English writer and the younger brother of bestselling thriller writer Lee Child.

Grant is in the process of taking over the writing of Child’s Jack Reacher series of thrillers, writing under the new pseudonym Andrew Child.

Silly escapist fantasy. I enjoyed the 2011 book in the Stone Barrington series. 😀

All the books with Herbie Fisher are entertaining.

It’s tough luck for Jim Hackett, founder and owner of Strategic Services, that he got shot to death while he was in Stone’s company, but making his acquaintance has paid big dividends for Stone. In token of Woodman & Weld’s appreciation for landing Strategic Services’ business, managing partner Bill Eggers presents Stone with a $1 million check and dangles a promise of a full partnership before him.

Given Stone’s current lifestyle, however, his settling down with the firm where he’s long been of counsel sounds about as likely as his settling down with just one woman.

When his perennial-nuisance client Herbie Fisher summons Stone to his wedding reception to Christine Gunn, it looks as if Stone may be in for a serious romance with Christine’s sister Adele Lansdown, who recently widowed herself by shooting her abusive husband. Alas, after a brief interlude between the sheets, Adele’s shot to death herself.

Will Stone, so grief-stricken that he doesn’t have sex for nearly a week, be able to focus on catching her killer? Not unless he turns down an offer to accompany Mike Freeman, Hackett’s successor at Strategic Services, on a clandestine flight to extract non-extraditable arms dealer Erwin Gebhardt, aka Pablo Estancia, for Lance Cabot at the CIA.

The mission goes belly-up when Pablo escapes just before the plane lands in the United States …

Kirkus review

Excellent murder mystery. An easy read.

Fast paced. Interesting construction.

Highly recommended.

Quinn Alexander has committed an unthinkable crime.

To avoid spending her life in prison, Quinn makes a run for it. She leaves behind her home, her job, and her family. She grabs her passport and heads for the northern border before the police can discover what she’s done.

But when an unexpected snowstorm forces her off the road, Quinn must take refuge at the broken-down, isolated Baxter Motel. The handsome and kindly owner, Nick Baxter, is only too happy to offer her a cheap room for the night.

Unfortunately, the Baxter Motel isn’t the quiet, safe haven it seemed to be. The motel has a dark and disturbing past. And in the dilapidated house across the way, the silhouette of Nick’s ailing wife is always at the window. Always watching.

Amazon

I’m not a fan of all the McFadden books.

For example, I got about 1/3 of the way through her book The Tenant — then quit because the protagonist, Blake Porter, was so annoying. 😀

She is very popular, however.