Book Review - Reckless by Andrew Gross

Synopsis:  Ty Hauck is shattered by the news. A close friend from his past, along with her husband and daughter, has been brutally murdered in her home by vicious intruders. Now he will risk everything he loves to avenge her death. . . .

A wealthy banker, seeing his world about to crumble around him, knows his family is in unfathomable danger. . . .

A U.S. government agent watches the sudden bank transfers of millions in cash and suspects that this is the first step in a plot to unleash a wave of global panic. . . .

Private security investigator Ty Hauck, with Naomi Blum, a tenacious agent from the U.S. Department of Treasury, unravels the evidence that joins these seemingly unrelated events—revealing a reckless scheme that stretches from New York to London to central Europe and gives new meaning to the phrase "too big to fail." What began with a tragedy that opened a door to Hauck's past—a door that he thought was long closed—ends with a frantic race to avert a disaster that could shake the very security of our country—and even the world.

First Line:  "Beep, beep.  Beep, beep."

Random Quote:  "Jared's blows were meaningless.  The man flung his arm around, sending him flying into the wall of lockers.  It gave Hauck the instant he needed.  He squeezed on the boot and swung it upward, catching the startled attacker in the face just as he turned back, his eyes widening in surprise."

Review:  Andrew Gross has had a seven-year partnership with James Patterson and it shows.  I'm mixed about James Patterson who I thought wrote some great books early in his career - the first Alex Cross books were truly outstanding thrillers - and then became, quite frankly, a hack spewing out indifferent thrillers back-to-back.  Andrew Gross has benefited in a sense from both sides of this equation - he's definitely learned the elements of a successful thriller and he's definitely learned to spew out the formula.  You can probably guess that I'm not impressed with the latter half of the equation.

Wall Street - Image via Wikipedia

I read a lot of thrillers and many of them are very good.  Sure, they follow a formula, but the best ones go beyond that to deliver both plot and characters that make you want to keep turning the pages.  Unfortunately for me this just didn't deliver anything beyond the average.  The plot premise was definitely interesting:  What if the recent economic crisis was actually evidence of a complex terrorist action targeting the financial sector?  It's an idea with a lot of promise - a sort of Law and Order ripped from the headlines kind of thing (and I do love Law and Order).

Where the problems come is in the characters who are pretty lackluster and typical.  Yes, yes, the intrepid hero is intrepid and, well, heroic.  Yes, yes, the government agent is female, skinny, and model-beautiful - can you see the TV mini-series being cast?  If the book was skewed more towards the female agent, it'd be on Lifetime, but since it's skewed towards the intrepid hero think FX.

Don't get me wrong, this was fairly entertaining, but not entertaining enough to keep me up reading and that's the minimum requirement for me to think it was a great thriller.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book for review.

Reading Challenges:  ARC Reading Challenge, 2010 100+ Reading Challenge