Michael Robotham: Life or Death

"Life is short. Love is vast. Live like there's no tomorrow."
This is without doubt one of the best crime thrillers I have read in 2014. It is an action-packed, adrenaline-charged, absorbing, wonderfully written and surprisingly sensitive story from one of the world's best writers of psychological fiction.

Audie Palmer was almost killed when a botched armed robbery over ten years ago left him almost brain dead from gunshot wounds. After his recovery he was imprisoned for ten years. His time in prison was not easy as he was faced by constant danger from prisoners and guards wanting to know what had happened to the millions of dollars stolen in the robbery. Despite this Audie was a survivor who baffled everyone by escaping from jail when he had only one day left before he was released.

Why would Audie want to escape when he could have walked free the next day? How is he going to survive a huge manhunt? While Audie wants to avenge his punishment and the corruption, money and treachery that put him in jail he also wants to be part of the life of someone precious to him.

Diminutive FBI Special Agent Desiree Furness gets involved when she starts to have second thoughts about the case and pieces together parts of the story that Audie has never revealed. At the same time there are others who want to track him down to prevent the truth being told. It is a tense and absorbing story full of twists and turns as Robotham takes us on a switchback ride and uncovers things that will be hard to forget.

This is not just a crime thriller, it is also a sensitive love story. Robotham tells us about Audie's early life without telling us what happened at the robbery. He tells us about Audie's intense love for Belita, a refugee from El Salvador, who tells Audie "Life is short. Love is vast. Live like there's no tomorrow."

Many successful authors stick with series that have made them successful. While Robotham has had success with his log-running series set in England featuring psychologist Joe O’Loughlin (who he promises to bring back soon), he has taken a break to show that he can write a great standalone thriller, set this time mainly in Texas.

This book shows that Australian author Michael Robotham is at the top of his form. He says on his website that LIFE OR DEATH was very special to him as, after nurturing the idea for over twenty years, he believed that he was destined to write this book. I am so glad he did because it confirms my view that he is one of the best contemporary thriller authors and I wish him every success, especially in the most important US market which is starting to know his works. Well done Michael Robotham, this is one of the rare occasions when I wish I could give a score greater than 5 stars.

I alway like to reflect on highlights of an author's prose. This quotation will remain with me for a long time:

"We take pleasure in the sound of rain, the smell of cut grass, the smiles of strangers, the feeling of dawn on a hot day. We learn things and realise we can never know more than we don’t know. We catch love like a cold and cling to it like wreckage in a storm."

Michael Rowbotham: Missing You

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Psychological thriller at its best
Michael Robotham is one of the best authors of psychological thrillers on the planet, and this is undoubtedly one of his best. Key elements in a good psychological thriller are to weave a chilling story and to leave you guessing to the very end - Robotham does that in spades.

Marnie Logan is having a terrible life. Her second husband Daniel disappeared a year ago and she is left to bring up 2 children, a young boy, Elijah, with developmental problems from celiac disease and a teenage girl, Zoe,  from her first marriage. There has been absolutely no sign of Daniel, no bank account or credit card transactions and the police can find no trace of him - he has disappeared into thin air. Because she doesn't have proof of death she can't access his bank accounts or £300,000 life insurance.

Daniel was a gambling addict and left her with a large debt to a disreputable character, Patrick Henessy, with a contract making Marnie equally liable for the debt. Henessy won't write off the debt and her only recourse is to work for his escort agency to pay it off. When she refuses to service a client her handler Niall Quinn beats her up. What is particularly scary is that Quinn later turns up the next day in the local canal  with his throat cut and the police question her because she was the last one known to have seen him alive.

Following her depression following Daniel's death she has been consulting her neighbour, psychologist Joe O’Loughlin. She doesn't tell him everything about her difficult childhood or that from time to time she feels that she is being watched.

At last Marnie finds a way to access Daniel's personal effects from his office and finds a red book that he was creating for her birthday with her life story told through her family, friends and acquaintances. Jo and his friend retired detective Vincent Ruiz help Marnie to follow the leads in the book, and the scary part is that some more people associated with Marnie also start to get hurt.

Robotham writes a chilling  and disturbing story about Marnie's life, interleaved with observations from someone who has been following Marnie for years. Slowly he gives us clues and then reveals the answers but he leaves one of the questions unanswered even on the last page. Well done Michael Rowbotham, you have eclipsed all of your excellent previous psychological thrillers.

Now we wait for the release of LIFE OR DEATH in a few days time. Rowbotham says "It’s my tenth novel and one that I feel I was destined to write." Many of you may not be aware that while all of his novels are set in the United Kingdom, Michael Rowbotham is an Australian author who lives on Sydney's Northern Beaches.

Michael Robotham: Bombproof

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Hilarious tale about an innocent Criminal
Every now and again I find an unforgettable gem of a thriller - this is one of them because it is clever, realistic and very funny, in a dark kind of way. It is especially unforgettable because the "anti-hero", Sami Macbeth, has the ability turn a desperate situations into  hopeless ones.

Sami has two ambitions, to be a guitarist in a popular rock band and to care for his sister, Nadia. She is part Algerian (as is Sami), nineteen and absolutely beautiful. His first hopeless situation happens when Sami is being driven home from a gig by a friend who runs away when the van is stopped by the police because, unknown to Sami, gems from a major robbery are stashed in the van.  For the last 3 years Sami hasn't been able to care for Nadia because he has been in jail as an accessory to the robbery. His time in jail is relatively comfortable because the long term dangerous prisoners protect him as they believe he is a master safecracker.

After 3 years all Sami wants to do is to get laid and care for Nadia. He succeeds with trumps on the first one but Nadia is missing. A drug lord, Tony Murphy thinks Sami is a master safecracker and wants his help. He holds the trump card as he has put Nadia under his control by forcing her to become a crackhead. On top of this, dangerous society criminal kingpin, Ray Garza is chasing him for different reasons.

There follows a litany of hopeless but extremely humorous situations. Sami is forced to help someone blow up a safe for Murphy and during their escape his companion blows himself up on the London Underground. Sami is chased by the police as a suspected terrorist and inadvertently gets involved in a bloody hostage situation. Things keep going from bad to worse with the entire London police force chasing him on terrorist alert. The only saving grace is that so many of the situations are so downright hilarious they made me laugh out loud.

The book is set in the UK and written in the local vernacular (eg the police are "rozzers"). The bad guys are really bad and violent, aided by a bent senior policeman from Scotland Yard. Fortunately for Sami his parole officer and her ex-husband,  retired detective Vincent Ruiz, are on Sami's side.

Michael Robotham is an Australian author who writes fast moving and skillfully plotted. I'm sure that I detect some Aussie humour in the book. He has written several very good more serious bestselling psychological thrillers set in the UK which I have enjoyed. This is a stand-alone dark humour thriller which I enjoyed even more and is highly recommended. His books are being released in the US and will hopefully get the same following that he has in the UK. The e-book I read was a reissue of a book first published in 2008.

Michael Robotham: Shatter

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You will jump when I tell you to!
Michael Robotham is IMHO the UK's best author of psychological criminal thrillers - and this is one of his best if not his most bizarre story.

Professor Joe O'Loughlin, a local University clinical psychologist is called to help Bristol police with a potential jumper from the Clifton Suspension Bridge (a suicides' magnet). What is unusual is that the jumper is a naked female, in high heels, talking intensively to someone on her mobile phone making her immune from outside contact. The person on the line is a a psychopath who knows how to bend minds by frightening them so much that he can control what they will do.

This first disastrous encounter foreshadows future similar incidents that will challenge Joes' ability to cope, both professionally and personally. Joe is also battling Parkinson's Disease which could impair his ability to cope with and prevent these challenging psychological situations.

Robotham piles on the suspense with great writing and characters. I will certainly be following more of his books, just as I am following the UK's best police procedural writer, Peter Robinson, with his DCI Banks' series.