“Every now and then, a bit of work will come your way with sincerity, Mr. Blackwell. The man in the middle won’t have any skin in the game. He’ll speak honestly to you, asking for the unique help that only a few people on the planet can provide. And if you accept, for one occasion at least, you’ll have the pleasure of working with a clean heart if not clean hands.”
One of the things that keeps me coming back to Michael Koryta, aside from his excellent prose, is his surprising characters. Never Far Away kept me guessing all the way through, mostly because one of the central characters was truly impossible to predict (and I can tell you, as a writer, that that’s a hard trick to pull off).
Leah Trenton is a successful, and highly skilled, Maine outdoor guide. But this is her second life. In the first one, she was a corporate pilot, working for a wealthy family reminiscent of the Kennedys, and a loving wife and mother. But one day she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and saw something she wasn’t supposed to see. The only choice she had was to fake her own death and disappear, leaving her family behind forever. Regret gnaws at her to this day.
But now her husband is dead, and her children need her again. She hurries to collect them, in the personage of a fictional “Aunt Leah.” She then learns that her enemies are on her trail, and they are men she knows well, very ruthless and very good at what they do.
Leah, however, can face them on her own ground, far from cities and the internet. In addition to that, she has an ally she knows nothing about – one who may save her family, but possibly at the price of her life.
As I’ve mentioned before, I try to avoid stories with female protagonists, especially in action roles. I like to keep the violence directed at, and inflicted by, males. In Never Far Away, a male action character is introduced, which I appreciated, but my protective instincts were still pretty heavily engaged. This book, therefore, scored high in dramatic tension. And that is, of course, what thrillers are all about.
Recommended, with cautions for language and intense situations.