"The Perfect Suspense Novel for a Lazy Memorial Day Weekend at the Beach."

'Sometimes the dead live on in your dreams.'

A nice start to the first suspense novel I've opened in years.

I pressed on.

It turns out that Roy Valois is dreaming of Delia. He reaches out to touch
her hair. Ooops. It's Jen in his bed, and, first thing in the morning, she
has news: She's been offered a job running the ski school in Keystone.
That's in Colorado. Right now, they're living in Vermont. A significant
distance. Especially because they've been dating for two years -- and
marriage is very much on his mind. Roy calls and reserves a table at the
town's best restaurant for dinner a few days later. This won't be like the
last time, in the tiny Washington apartment, when he just blurted out his
proposal to Delia.

I look up. I've read two-and-a-half pages in less than a minute, and I
already know a great deal.

In another paragraph I know more. Roy lives in a barn he bought with
Delia. He's a sculptor, working in large slabs of metal. Delia was an
economist at the Hobbes Institute, a think tank that focuses on third
world problems.

But enough of the past. Roy's working on a masterpiece that he's named
after his late wife. (She died, Peter Abrahams tells us almost as an
aside, 15 years ago, in a helicopter crash off Nicaragua on a trip to
convince farmers to plant pineapples.) He also plays amateur hockey. And
is soon reminded of a famous goal he scored in college.

Will that glorious undergraduate moment be mentioned in his New York Times
obituary -- or will it be art art art? Obits of the famous generally are
written years, even decades, before the actual death; a local kid
volunteers to hack into the newspaper's files. He finds Roy's obit: no
mention of the hockey goal. But there is an incorrect description of
Delia. According to the Times, she was employed by the United Nations, not
the Hobbes Institute. Roy's annoyed by that mistake. So he calls the Times
reporter and....

And now an hour has gone by and I've read a third of the book. This
doesn't happen when I'm reading James Salter. Another 90 minutes and I'm
done. The sun is now angled low, the afternoon has cooled. But I've read
an exciting book and I'm red hot.

Who is Peter Abrahams? Stephen King's favorite suspense writer. Well,
lucky me: I started at the top. I check out his web site, where he lists
his literary influences:

Nabokov is one of my favorites. The sheer brilliance! He makes it look so
easy... Closer to my own field, I've been influenced by Graham Greene...

Greene, I'd expect. But Nabokov? To love “Pale Fire” and then write
suspense thrillers?

I'm not going to argue. Peter Abrahams has written 18 novels so far. A
cursory scan of the reviews suggests they're uniformly superior. I have my
work -- correction: my pleasure -- cut out for me.

Jesse Kornbluth
HeadButler.com

A Book Sense Notable Choice

"From the reliably marvelous Peter Abrahams comes Nerve Damage, another top-drawer psychological thriller."
- Jennifer Reese, Entertainment Weekly

"I swear, if one more literary person says in that oh-so-condescendng tone, 'Oh, I don't read ... mysteries,' I'm going to take a novel by Peter Abrahams and smack him on his smug little head."
- Michele Ross, Cleveland Plain Dealer

"The care with which Abrahams brings his characters to life sets him apart from most thriller writers working today."
- The New Yorker

"gripping ... the action and suspense are first rate."
- Publishers Weekly

"...gripping, captivating, and so well written."
- Library Journal