Quick Review: DO NO HARM by Robert Pobi (Minotaur/Hodder)

PobiR-LP3-DoNoHarmUSHCLucas Page returns as a killer stalks medical professionals — including his wife!

A series of suicides and accidental deaths in the medical community are actually well-disguised murders and only Lucas Page can see the pattern and discern the truth that no one else believes.

Lucas Page is a polymath, astrophysicist, professor, husband, father of five adopted children, bestselling author, and ex-FBI agent — emphasis on “ex.” Severely wounded after being caught in an explosion, Page left the FBI behind and put his focus on the rebuilding the rest of his life. But Page is uniquely gifted in being able to recognize patterns that elude others, a skill that brings the F.B.I. knocking at his door again and again.

Lucas Page’s wife Erin loses a friend, a gifted plastic surgeon, to suicide and Lucas begins to realize how many people Erin knew that have died in the past year, in freak accidents and now suicide. Intrigued despite himself, Page begins digging through obituaries and realizes that there’s a pattern — a bad one. These deaths don’t make sense unless the doctors are being murdered, the target of a particularly clever killer. This time, the FBI wants as little to do with Lucas as he does with them so he’s left with only one option — ignore it and go back to his normal life. But then, the pattern reveals that the next victim is likely to be… Erin herself.

Lucas Page returns. Even more banged up than he was at the start of each of the previous novels in the series, his mind nevertheless remains as intact and sharp as ever. His personality, also, remains rather sharp… As a series of suspicious deaths inches closer to home, Page finds himself back in the FBI’s orbit hunting a devious killer. Do No Harm is another fast-paced, gripping thriller from Pobi. Continue reading

New Books (June-July)

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Featuring: Samantha Jayne Allen, Jonathan Ames, Timothy Bella, Olivia Blake, Hillary Chute, Heather Cleary, S. A. Cosby, Lillian Fishman, John French, Meg Gardiner, Grant Ginder, J. T. Greathouse, James Grippando, Tea Hacic-Vlahovic, Guy Haley, Jordan Harper, John Irving, Alma Katsu, Patrick Radden Keefe, Kathleen Kent, Joe R. Lansdale, Sam Lipsyte, Brenda Lozano, Michael Mann, Emily McGovern, J. M. Miro, Lauren Nossett, Anya Ow, Paul Oyer, Dan Pfeiffer, Robert Pobi, Josh Riedel, Emery Robin, Alex Segura, Mike Shackle, Margaret Sullivan, G.B. Trudeau, Chris Wraight

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Upcoming: DO NO HARM by Robert Pobi (Minotaur)

PobiR-LP3-DoNoHarmUSHCBack in 2019, I was lucky to get a DRC of Robert Pobi‘s first Lucas Page novel, City of Windows. It offered everything a great mystery/crime/thriller novel should have — a gripping, fast-paced plot, an interesting and engaging protagonist, and some cool twists on genre conventions. The follow up, Under Pressure added to readers’ understanding of the main character as well as another clever and gripping mystery. In August, Minotaur Books is due to publish the third novel in the series, Do No Harm, and I am very much looking forward to reading it. Here’s the synopsis:

A series of suicides and accidental deaths in the medical community are actually well-disguised murders and only Lucas Page can see the pattern and discern the truth that no one else believes.

Lucas Page is a polymath, astrophysicist, professor, husband, father of five adopted children, bestselling author, and ex-FBI agent — emphasis on “ex.” Severely wounded after being caught in an explosion, Page left the FBI behind and put his focus on the rebuilding the rest of his life. But Page is uniquely gifted in being able to recognize patterns that elude others, a skill that brings the F.B.I. knocking at his door again and again.

Lucas Page’s wife Erin loses a friend, a gifted plastic surgeon, to suicide and Lucas begins to realize how many people Erin knew that have died in the past year, in freak accidents and now suicide. Intrigued despite himself, Page begins digging through obituaries and realizes that there’s a pattern — a bad one. These deaths don’t make sense unless the doctors are being murdered, the target of a particularly clever killer. This time, the FBI wants as little to do with Lucas as he does with them so he’s left with only one option — ignore it and go back to his normal life. But then, the pattern reveals that the next victim is likely to be… Erin herself.

Robert Pobi’s Do No Harm is due to be published by Minotaur Books in North America, on August 9th. The first two novels in the series are published in the UK by Hodder, so maybe the third one will be as well.

Also on CR: Reviews of City of Windows and Under Pressure

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads

Quick Review: UNDER PRESSURE by Robert Pobi (St. Martin’s Press / Mulholland UK)

PobiR-LP2-UnderPressureUSThe explosive second Lucas Page novel

A series of deadly explosions rock the city of New York and with too many victims and no known motive, the F.B.I. turns once again to Dr. Lucas Page…

On a beautiful October evening, New York City’s iconic Guggenheim Museum is closed for a tech company’s private gala. Until an explosion rocks the night, instantly killing 702 people, including every single attendee — yet the damage to the building itself was minimal.

An explosion of that precision was no accident and, in response, the FBI mobilizes its entire team — but the sheer number of victims strains their resources. Were all 702 victims in the wrong place at the wrong time, or was there only one target and 701 unlucky bystanders? That many victim files is a staggering amount of data to sort through and Brett Kehoe, Special Agent in Charge of Manhattan, decides that he can’t do this without more computational power.

Dr. Lucas Page, astrophysicist, university professor, and former FBI agent, is uniquely gifted for the task at hand — he can visualize a crime scene as if he was a bystander and can break down any set of data at a glance. Even though Page wants nothing to do with the FBI, with his city under attack and his family at risk, he steps in to find a killer in a haystack before they strike again.

I really enjoyed the first novel in Robert Pobi’s Lucas Page series, City of Windows. I was therefore very much looking forward to the character’s second outing, and I’m happy to report that I was not disappointed. I really enjoyed this, and zipped through it. Continue reading

New Books (April-May)

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Featuring: A. Deborah Baker, William Boyle, Trudi Canavan, Jim Carrey, P. Djèlí Clark, Susan Eisenhower, T.C. Farren, Thomas Frank, Sarah Gailey, Daniel Hornsby, S. L. Huang, Phil Klay, Derek Künsken, Jenn Lyons, John P. Murphy, Robert Pobi, Alastair Reynolds, Jane Routley, John Sandford, Sara Sligar, Wright Thompson, Rufi Thorpe, Sarah Tolmie, Dana Vachon, Vanessa Veselka, Erin K. Wagner, Jess Walter, C L Werner, Rachel Winters, Julian E. Zelizer

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Review: CITY OF WINDOWS by Robert Pobi (Minotaur Books)

PobiR-LP1-CityOfWindowsUSA fantastic new thriller, and hopefully the start of a long series

During the worst blizzard in memory, an FBI agent in a moving SUV in New York City is killed by a nearly impossible sniper shot. Unable to pinpoint where the shot came from, as the storm rapidly wipes out evidence, the agent-in-charge Brett Kehoe turns to the one man who might be able to help them — former FBI agent Lucas Page.

Page, a university professor and bestselling author, left the FBI years ago after a tragic event robbed him of a leg, an arm, an eye, and the willingness to continue. But he has an amazing ability to read a crime scene, figure out angles and trajectories in his head, and he might be the only one to be able to find the sniper’s nest. With a new wife and family, Lucas Page has no interest in helping the FBI — except for the fact that the victim was his former partner.

Agreeing to help for his partner’s sake, Page finds himself hunting a killer with an unknown agenda and amazing sniper skills in the worst of conditions. And his partner’s murder is only the first in a series of meticulously planned murders carried out with all-but-impossible sniper shots. The only thing connecting the deaths is that the victims are all with law enforcement — that is until Page’s own family becomes a target.

To identify and hunt down this ruthless, seemingly unstoppable killer, Page must discover what hidden past connects the victims before he himself loses all that is dear to him.

This is the first of Pobi’s novels that I’ve read, and I was intrigued by the premise. Very quickly, it became clear that this is a very good novel by an excellent writer. I really enjoyed this, and I’ll definitely be reading more of Pobi’s work in the future. Continue reading

New Books (February-March)

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Featuring: Katherine Addison, Jason Allen, Graham Edwards, David Gordon, Nancy Griffin, Rachel Harrison, Peter Holmes, Cameron Johnston, Richard Kadrey, Vylar Kaftan, David Koepp, Steven Kotler, Melissa Scrivner Love, Kim Masters, Una McCormack, Suyi Davies Okungbowa, Robert Pobi, Taylor Jenkins Reid, David Ricciardi, Nathan Ripley, J. Michael Straczynski, Søren Sveistrup, Adrian Tchaikovsky (x2), Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson, Evan Winter

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