I had previously read Jeff Abbott’s novels, Black Jack Point, Cut And Run, Kiss Gone Bad and Panic, and remember them as well crafted, engaging, with shrewd plots and great characters . I had also read about his awards for Do Unto Others, which won both the Agatha Award and the Macavity Award for Best First Novel. So when I had the opportunity to read Adrenaline I jumped at it. The blurb made it sound fun, the plot was intriguing, and the protagonist sounded like my kind of guy.
Sam Capra is an interesting guy, he is a CIA Analyst, newly married, expecting his first child and stationed in London. He is also a ‘parkour practitioner.’ Parkour (PK) is a method of movement, first developed in France, that teaches participants how to move around obstacles with speed and efficiency employing vaults, rolls, running, climbing and jumping. Free running is a term that is sometimes used in English speaking countries to describe the discipline; urban acrobatics where people seem to run up walls are somewhat representative. The book opens up with Capra going on a run through London that is hypnotic in description and draws the reader instantly into the story.
After this opening sequence, Sam goes to work that day and the novel quickly moves into the gist of the story. Sam is about to deliver an intelligence report that he has been putting together on criminal gangs moving dangerous merchandise across Europe and maybe into America. There is also evidence that these gangs are infiltrating governments. Then Sam’s cell phone rings. Not strict protocol in meetings, but his wife is expecting at any moment and he is forgiven. It is his wife, Lucy and she tells him she must see him. Now! He must leave the building now. So he does. And as he searches for Lucy on the street, he catches sight of her seemingly being held against her will. She’s in a Audi driven by a man with a question mark scar near his eye. Then Sam’s building blows up, along with all his colleagues.
Article comments