Panic

I read PANIC by Jeff Abbott (Onyx, c2005, ISBN 0-451-41222-2) kind of on a dare.

For those who don't know me, I am a pessimist. I see the glass half-empty so that I'm not surprised when someone comes along with a pitcher and fills it up for me. And I never believe the people who tell me, "This book has non-stop action!" or "It is the funniest movie ever!" because I got suckered into watching NAPOLEON DYNAMITE exactly this way, and never again will I believe.

But someone, on a list-serv that I belong to, said that this book had the qualifying "non-stop action" and although I was in the mood to prove somebody wrong, they weren't that far off.

The book begins:

The phone awoke Evan Casher, and he knew something was wrong.

Now, I won't lie. This book doesn't have "non-stop action" because eventually they sleep or get knocked out or something, and action has to stop. But it was pretty eventful I would hazard to guess about 98% of the time. For the first time in a long time, I did not feel cheated by reading a book with a qualifier.

The plot in a nutshell:
Evan Casher gets a call from his mother one morning and finds out that his entire life is pretty much a lie. Now, the bad guys are after him and he better figure out the truth quick-like or he could end up dunzo.

I've never read any espionage type thrillers so I was really surprised that I liked this. It's full of CIA secret stuff and travel, travel, travel,travel! (Which is code speak for 'running for your life!')
It also made me want to go see this movie but most importantly, it left me wanting to read more of Abbott's books!