Publisher's Weekly Review
This well-written "post-9/11" thriller from Andrews (the pseudonym of New York City book editor Peter Gethers) starts off with two seemingly innocuous news items: an EPA announcement that places an Alaskan oil field "permanently off-limits to oil companies" and a Bloomberg report on oil prices. But then the novel explodes with a nightmarish event: a suicide bombing destroys a restaurant in one of Long Island's fashionable beach towns, killing (among others) East End Harbor sheriff Jimmy Leggett. Leggett's widow wants the new sheriff, Justin Westwood (the protagonist of 2003's Aphrodite), to find out who's behind her husband's murder. Soon another incident-a small plane crashes just after take-off-commands Westwood's immediate attention; the dead pilot has no ID and, bizarrely, leaves no fingerprints. Westwood's relentlessly dogged investigation pits him against some powerful characters indeed-Islamic terrorists or our own government?-and puts him in real danger: the book's best section vividly describes what it might be like to be interrogated at Guant namo Bay. While some readers may be put off by the broad caricature of the current administration and a conspiracy-laden plot that perhaps only Michael Moore and his acolytes could find credible, all will cheer the appealing Westwood as he pursues the truth. Agent, Esther Newberg. (Mar. 22) FYI: Gethers is also the author of The Cat Who Went to Paris and other works of nonfiction. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Justin Westwood, the small-town cop with a big-city past, returns in this imaginative thriller from the author of Gideon (1999), Icarus (2001), and Aphrodite (2003). When a suicide bomber blows himself up in a restaurant in the tony Hamptons, it appears that terrorists have targeted Long Island's rich and famous. Not too long after that, a small plane taking off from a Long Island airport crashes; transportation authorities call it an accident, but Westwood suspects murder. And, as he investigates, he finds something even scarier: the bombing and the plane crash may be related. Andrews (a pseudonym for author Peter Gethers) handles the sensitive subject matter skillfully, engaging our interest in a complex plot rather than simply exploiting our fear of terrorism. Westwood, who was introduced in Aphrodite, is a strong and enigmatic protagonist, well suited to the convoluted kinds of crimes that Andrews has him investigating. --David Pitt Copyright 2005 Booklist
Library Journal Review
A chic restaurant in the Hamptons, NY, is blown up by a suicide bomber. Shortly thereafter, a small plane crashes, killing the pilot. Justin Westwood, an East End Harbor police officer, is baffled when he finds an investigator from the FAA at the site only minutes after the crash. Then a second bombing, in Manhattan, kills the FAA investigator. Is this foreign terrorism or something else entirely? In the wake of a third bombing, Justin finds himself a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, where he begins to put together the pieces of a high-level government cover-up. Read by Patrick G. Lawlor, this chilling story of corruption and deceit should leave the listener asking questions about real life. Recommended.--Joanna M. Burkhardt, Coll. of Continuing Education Lib., Univ. of Rhode Island, Providence (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
