“The twists and turns from devilish Deaver will have you burning the midnight oil, then using it to set fire to the candle you’ll be burning at both ends until you finish this.”
NO MAJOR SPOILERS
This is the second of Deaver’s books I’ve read; what I am struggling to understand is I haven’t bought more of them. Edge is a standalone novel about protecting witnesses (principles), from harm from lifters or hit me. But what is the difference when the wit is killed anyway? A hitman is just that, a killer for hire. A lifter is a different man altogether and is employed to extract, or ‘lifter’ information from the wit before killing them.
Each lifter has his own method of extracting information, and this guy, Henry Loving use sandpaper and surgical alcohol applied to sensitive parts of the body. We first meet him in the first set piece where his first target is not actually the witness but the agent guarding her. It take seven minutes for the agent to give up the info, all of it broadcast to a colleague driving fat to get there for him; he gets there too late.
Six years later, the colleague is now a full agent and is assigned to case where the principle is a detective in D.C. police. Thinking they had plenty of time, the team arrives at the cop’s house just in time to be involved in a shootout with Loving and his hired help. The goodies win that time and set off to for a safe house. Loving finds out where they are and the chase is on again, and again the goodies get out alive and arrive at the safe house, well, safely.
Tensions within the family rise as their confinement continues. Secrets come out increasing tensions even more. One principle the sister-in-law of the cop, a young, flighty and immature young lady. The sisters fall out when the wife claims that it is her sister who is the target. The wife’s background comes out and perhaps it’s her who is the target, oh no no no … but that would be a major spoiler is said who it is. The whole thing comes to and the primary, or the person who hired Loving is revealed.
My initial thoughts when I began this one was that it sound very much like the US Marshal WP division so aptly revealed in the Big Arnie movie Erasure, which we haven’t seen for some time now, (I wonder if we still have it?) No, it’s not that crew but highly secret government black project that is used in the most dire of circumstances. So why not try it then, go on, you know you want too!
Reviewed by:
Ron Clark
Added 14th October 2017
