Monday 17 February 2014

Runner - Patrick Lee - Review

© Bianca Janeane

   

PATRICK LEE - RUNNER



• Thriller
• 328 pages
• Minotaur Books
• release date: February 18, 2014

★★★★★ 
4.9 of 5 Stars



The New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Breach launches his explosive new thriller series featuring former Special Forces operative Sam Dryden

Sam Dryden, retired special forces, lives a quiet life in a small town on the coast of Southern California. While out on a run in the middle of the night, a young girl runs into him on the seaside boardwalk. Barefoot and terrified, she’s running from a group of heavily armed men with one clear goal—to kill the fleeing child. After Dryden helps her evade her pursuers, he learns that the eleven year old, for as long as she can remember, has been kept in a secret prison by forces within the government. But she doesn’t know much beyond her own name, Rachel. She only remembers the past two months of her life—and that she has a skill that makes her very dangerous to these men and the hidden men in charge.

Dryden, who lost his wife and young daughter in an accident five years ago, agrees to help her try to unravel her own past and make sense of it, to protect her from the people who are moving heaven and earth to find them both. Although Dryden is only one man, he’s a man with the extraordinary skills and experience—as a Ranger, a Delta, and five years doing off-the-book black ops with an elite team. But, as he slowly begins to discover, the highly trained paramilitary forces on their heels is the only part of the danger they must face. Will Rachel’s own unremembered past be the most deadly of them all?


MY THOUGHTS


The book starts with 36-year-old Sam Dryden's insomnia - and the way it makes him end up going for a run in the middle of the night - in his California hometown.
While he's jogging near the beach he suddenly, literally, runs into a girl - or rather a girl runs into him. A no more than 12 year old - terrified-for-her-life - girl.


She can't remember anything but her name - Rachel - and what happened in the last 2 months.
She was held at some kind of hospital, drugged and interrogated and she has no idea why.

But - no time to think about that now - because Rachel wasn't running for the fun of it - she's being hunted by a group of armed men.

It doesn't take Sam long to decide that he has to help Rachel to get away from those men.

It takes them a while, but they manage to get out of town. In a 'borrowed' car.

Unfortunately though - Sam lost his wallet and now the bad guys know who he is.

Which doesn't exactly make them any happier. Because now they know what kind of men stands between them and Rachel.

A very highly trained ex special forces soldier with years of blacked out/secret missions in his file.

But the bad guys don't give up - because they have control over the newst kind of satellites  - and they're always VERY close behind Sam & Rachel.
Too close.

But Sam is extremely smart and very highly trained and they manage to be one step ahead of the bad guys most of the time.

The 'main' bad guy here seems to be Martin Gaul - he does everything in his power to get to Rachel - he needs her dead! And he has friends in VERY high places!

The reason he wants Rachel out of the way??
Rachel is able to read minds. That's not all she can do - but until she gets her memory back - we won't know what else she can do!

 On the run from Gaul, Sam & Rachel race all over the country to make sense of the few little bits of information that Rachel can remember.

BUT THAT'S IT - I'm not telling you more about the story ☺
you have to read it to find out if there will be a happy end or a cliffhanger or if everybody dies at the end ☺




 

 I REALLY LOVED THE STORY!!!
and that's really saying something - because I normally HATE everything that's supernatural or psychic or anything like that!
But I really loved the people in this book - Rachel and Sam.
I LOVED SAM!!!
He's such a sad and lonely person - ever since his family died he kind of gave up. He just moves through his days without really living.
But meeting Rachel finally gave him something insanely important to do!
He literally had to save the world - or at least a part of it - and especially this little girl. A girl that's all alone in the world - just like him.

...at the end of the book I might have had something in my eye!
That happens so often while I'm reading - no idea what that is??? Maybe I should go see an eyedoctor ;)))


the only thing I didn't like was the fact that I didn't know that the book had those 'psychic' elements in it - probably my own fault - but maybe a tiny little bit the fault of the publishers for not putting a hint in the synopsis - it only says that Rachel has 'some talents' ☺ but anyway - either this slap is for me or for the publishers :P


But other than the psychic element - which is a huge part of the book - I REALLY LOVED the story.
It was a THRILLER! A thrilling - suspensy Thriller from the first chapter - ALL THROUGH THE BOOK!!! I couldn't really find a few quiet moments...I could NOT put the book down - I had to know how and if they would make it!

I would have given 5 big stars instead of 4.9 - but the psychic thing is just to creepily unreal for me ☺


but now....
I'M REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO BOOK #2
 
and no - don't worry - there was no real Cliffhanger ☺


LINKS TO THE BOOK AND AUTHOR



STALK PATRICK ON:





PATRICK LEE: 

           
PATRICK LEE lives in Hudsonville, Michigan. He is the author of three previous novels: The Breach (a New York Times Bestseller), Ghost Country, and Deep Sky.
 He was born in west Michigan in 1976.He started writing by working on screenplays but eventually moved to novel writing.