Special Offers see all
More at Powell'sRecently Viewed clear list
Original Essays | April 30, 2013
1 comment
|
 
$9.95
Used Hardcover
Usually ships in 5 to 7 business days
available for shipping or prepaid pickup only
This title in other editionsAfterburnby Colin Harrison
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:A high-voltage international thriller about a millionaire businessman catapulted into a world of criminal intrigue, sexual obsession, extortion, and death.
Charlie Ravich is a survivor whose brutal experience as a POW in Vietnam has more than prepared him for the cutthroat world of global commerce. Now a wealthy Upper East Side executive in his late fifties, Charlie has only one problem: his family is dying out. His wife teeters on the edge of Alzheimer's; their son has succumbed to leukemia; and their daughter, Julia, is unable to bear a child. Charlie is being trumped by time. Enter Christina, a beguiling Columbia University dropout-intelligent, selectively dishonest, filled with desire. Her affair with Rick Bocca, a member of a big-time truck-theft ring run by mobster Tony V., has landed her in prison. After four years in Bedford Hills, she is suddenly released by the Manhattan D.A.'s office — perhaps because she is innocent, perhaps not. Warned by a detective that Christina is being set up by Tony V., Rick begins a desperate, bungled search to warn Christina, who has lied her way into the high-flying world of Charlie Ravich. But her past catches up with her, and Rick's catches up with him, setting off a harrowing chain of betrayals that leaves only one person with any hope of a future. At once smart, sexy, and graphically violent, Afterburn spans the mean streets of New York's underworld and Hong Kong's corridors of high finance, and stands as Colin Harrison's most commercial work yet. Review:"The handy cliche alleging that a thriller is so good it transcends its genre has rarely been truer...breathtakingly suspenseful....A practically perfect literary thriller with a bitter lingering 'afterburn' indeed." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Review:"As smartly orchestrated as the action is, it's Harrison's achingly real characters who empower the novel, as well as his prose....
Review:"Afterburn never splinters into cheap nihilism....Harrison has created a world that's dangerous, cruel, overbright, too fast, and unreliable — but a world that's worth staying alive in. This is a serious, stylish, generously humane work of fiction." Tom De Haven, Entertainment Weekly
Review:"Harrison writes extremely well, and sections of Afterburn are as elegant as you'll hope to find in any novel....Afterburn provides an exciting ride..." Stephen Dobyns, The New York Times Book Review
Review:"It's a measure of Harrison's skill as a writer that Afterburn doesn't break down, despite the popcorn philosophy and endless orgasms of its characters. Harrison is an old-fashioned novelist with a gift for sharp characterization and a sense of pace that keeps you reading even when you know it's all hokum. Just skip the ruminations and go for the thrills." Peter Kurth, Salon.com
Review:"Rather more attention paid to detail than you are likely to require. In all respects, though, a brilliantly imagined book; immaculately organised; fully fleshed; dark as night." Philip Oakes, Literary Review
Review:"[A] literary thriller in the best sense of both words....Afterburn opens with an epigram from Sartre about how torture is not the route to people's real secrets, then proves in virtuoso style that they can only access them when brushing against their own mortality." Scott Tobias, The Onion A.V. Club
Review:"[A] far more ambitious and disturbing novel than its thriller trappings might avow....Afterburn is less a conventional thriller than a passionately orchestrated death march." G. Gorychka, The Voice Literary Supplement
Review:"[A] powerful thriller....This is a compelling, thrilling, and intelligent novel with sharply drawn characters." Vanessa Bush, Booklist
Review:"Colin Harrison is a writer of uncommon grace and velocity. His stories have a rare combination of moral weight, suspensefulness, and dangerous glamour. Afterburn may be his best book yet. Don't miss it." Peter Blauner, author of The Intruder and Man of the Hour
Synopsis:In a thriller set on Manhattan's Upper East Side, a former Vietnam POW-turned-wealthy international executive, whose family is beset by life-threatening illnesses, meets a beautiful but troubled female ex-con, and their lives are turned upside down.
Synopsis:A high-voltage international thriller about a millionaire businessman catapulted into a world of criminal intrigue, sexual obsession, extortion, and death. Charlie Ravich is a survivor whose brutal experience as a POW in Vietnam has more than prepared him for the cutthroat world of global commerce. Now a wealthy Upper East Side executive in his late fifties, Charlie has only one problem: his family is dying out. His wife teeters on the edge of Alzheimer's; their son has succumbed to leukemia; and their daughter, Julia, is unable to bear a child. Charlie is being trumped by time. Enter Christina, a beguiling Columbia University dropout-intelligent, selectively dishonest, filled with desire. Her affair with Rick Bocca, a member of a big-time truck-theft ring run by mobster Tony V., has landed her in prison. After four years in Bedford Hills, she is suddenly released by the Manhattan D.A.'s office-perhaps because she is innocent, perhaps not. Warned by a detective that Christina is being set up by Tony V., Rick begins a desperate, bungled search to warn Christina, who has lied her way into the high-flying world of Charlie Ravich. But her past catches up with her, and Rick's catches up with him, setting off a harrowing chain of betrayals that leaves only one person with any hope of a future. At once smart, sexy, and graphically violent, Afterburn spans the mean streets of New York's underworld and Hong Kong's corridors of high finance, and stands as Colin Harrison's most commercial work yet Synopsis:Power. Seduction. Greed. If you get too close, you might get burned. A People Page-Turner of the Week Charlie Ravitch is driven by power. As an international corporate tycoon he's well-skilled in the art of the deal. As a former Vietnam POW he still carries the scars of war. As a husband and father on the hard side of fifty he's on a quest for immortality-- and for a woman who can make every dream come true. No matter what it costs. Christina Welles is driven by greed. As a prison parolee, she's a veteran of dangerous-- and seductive-- relationships, a cunning woman well-schooled in the art of manipulation. Her bid to stay alive on the streets means outrunning her past, and escaping a lie that threatens every life she touches. No matter what it takes. In a moment of chance, two lives are about to intersect. In a nightmarish twist of fate, two obsessions are about to be indulged. And in a world where anything goes, one false move can destroy them both... An Entertainment Weekly Best Book of the Year About the AuthorColin Harrison is the deputy editor of Harper's and the author of Bodies Electric, Break and Enter, and Manhattan Nocturne. He lives with his wife, novelist Kathryn Harrison, in Brooklyn.
What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
Other books you might likeRelated Subjects
Fiction and Poetry » Mystery » A to Z
|
|||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
Follow us on...
|
||||||||||
