Product Description

When Evan Delaney’s father disappears, the cops think he’s fled the country to avoid prosecution. But Evan is sure that Phil has been abducted or killed for reasons associated with his work for Naval Intelligence.

As Evan hunts for clues, she is attacked by an armed man. The attacker ends up dead – and turns out to be a federal agent. Now Evan is on the run, implicated in his murder. Then she is contacted by a sinister duo – a Madam and gigolo mother-and-son-team who claim that Phil was mixed up in their very dirty business.

Can Evan save her father’s reputation – and his life? And can Jesse save Evan? Time is running out …

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #181871 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
'She is up there with Michael Connelly and Lee Child.' -- Stephen King 'The feisty Evan Delaney makes a welcome return in KILL CHAIN ... As ever, the plot is pacy and tight.' -- Sunday Express 'Page-turning terror' -- Belfast Telegraph 'Gardiner's prose is cool' -- Telegraph 'A rattling good read' -- News of the World 'The action is high octane from the first page ... Meg Gardiner is a class act at the top of her game. Once you pick it up, it's a very hard book to put down.' -- My Weekly 'Gardiner is brilliant at making the over-the-top seem utterly convincing. Her heroine, Evan Delaney, is a paragon for our times: tough, funny, clever, brave, tireless and compassionate ... The pace and inventiveness never flag, and the climax ... is both nailbiting and moving. But the brilliant writing is what puts this thriller way ahead of the competition ... Reading the fifth Evan Delaney book first is not a problem, but you'll probably want to go back and read the others. Intelligent escapism at its best.' -- Guardian

Review

'She is up there with Michael Connelly and Lee Child.'

(Stephen King )

‘The feisty Evan Delaney makes a welcome return in KILL CHAIN . . . As ever, the plot is pacy and tight.’ 

 

 

(Sunday Express )

‘Page-turning terror’ 

(Belfast Telegraph )

‘Gardiner’s prose is cool’

(Telegraph )

'A rattling good read'

(News of the World )

‘The action is high octane from the first page . . . Meg Gardiner is a class act at the top of her game. Once you pick it up, it's a very hard book to put down.’ 

(My Weekly )

‘Gardiner is brilliant at making the over-the-top seem utterly convincing. Her heroine, Evan Delaney, is a paragon for our times: tough, funny, clever, brave, tireless and compassionate . . . The pace and inventiveness never flag, and the climax . . . is both nailbiting and moving. But the brilliant writing is what puts this thriller way ahead of the competition . . . Reading the fifth Evan Delaney book first is not a problem, but you’ll probably want to go back and read the others. Intelligent escapism at its best.’ 

(Guardian )

Synopsis
When Evan Delaney's father disappears, the cops think he's fled the country to avoid prosecution. But Evan is sure that Phil has been abducted or killed for reasons associated with his work for Naval Intelligence. As Evan hunts for clues, she is attacked by an armed man. The attacker ends up dead -- and turns out to be a federal agent. Now Evan is on the run, implicated in his murder. Then she is contacted by a sinister duo -- a Madam and gigolo mother-and-son-team who claim that Phil was mixed up in their very dirty business. Can Evan save her father's reputation -- and his life? And can Jesse save Evan? Time is running out !

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Customer Reviews

Evan Delaney deals with hookers, guns and money and it costs her big time
Evan Delaney is called to an accident site on Highway 1, where her father's car has gone off the road. However, she quickly discovers that there is no body. The authorities think Phil was trying to fake a suicide because, well, the authorities are usually missing a brick or two: a car falling off a cliff into the Pacific Ocean, then you might expect not to find a body, but a car falling into a ravine? Then Evan gets a phone call and she is informed her father has been kidnapped. She has 72 hours to find something to exchange for his life and it will involve taking her far away from Southern California, fleeing from not only the feds but also some rather unusual assassins, and whatever this is about has something to do with Jax Rivera. Meanwhile, Jesse finally checks his answering machine and finds a desperate message from Phil, telling him to keep Evan out of this at all costs: if not, Phil's family will become part of the kill chain. Of course, it is way too late for Jesse to keep Evan clear of this mess and the chase is on.

Because this is basically a chase story, this one ends up having less of Gardiner's trademark humor because, frankly, there is not a lot of time for that kind of stuff this time around. I read most of "Kill Chain" thinking this was the least impressive of the Evan Delaney thrillers to date, in part because I really enjoyed the previous story, Crosscut, but also because by the time you get to the fifth novel the formula is really becoming obvious. With Evan Delaney it is always personal and she is starting to run out of people in her life (of course, the solution to that is to add more people to her life). I was wrestling with whether I would be rounding up or down on "Kill Chain," and then starting to think I was going to have to go with a straight 4 star rating. That was, until I got to the endgame. Gardiner has been getting more and more cinematic in terms of the stunts, but in these last two books she has been working on damaging Evan's psyche as well as her body. But as the opening lines of this novel warn us: "Don't ever pray for insight. You're liable to get it." The end of this book really represents one step forward, and two giant steps backwards for our heroine and I can only wonder where does Evan go from here?

Between the author's name and the title of the book appears the words: "Hookers, Guns and Money. Everybody Pays," and, yes, a certain Warren Zevon song was immediately lodged in my mind. I see you can get this paperback from Amazon, which is a vast improvement from when I first tried to track them down and had to get four of the give from Amazon.uk (I never thought to look north of the border). My paperback edition came from across the pond with a faux sticker on the cover with Stephen King's quote delcaring "She is up there with Michael Connelly and Lee Child." King raving about Gardiner's books on his website and in "Entertainment Weekly" may well have increased her readership to the point that there are more of us who checked out China Lake and the rest of these books because of his recommendation than there are those who lucked out by being onboard from the very beginning. Now I feel bad because I have no idea who those writers are, but since I am now all caught up on Gardiner's novels and have yet to pick up any sort of hint to when the next book comes out (yes, I will upgrade to hardback, because I am not waiting for the next paperback sometime in 2008), I might have to check out Connelly and Child. After all, they are up there with Meg Gardiner.

Putting Life on Hold
Putting life on hold...that's what Evan Delaney does in this latest thriller from Meg Gardiner. It's also what you'll do once you pick up the book. Once snared, it's hard to get free as you jet around the globe with Evan in a race against time.
Lives are at risk, lives are lost, baddies abound (real baddies, not just paper-mache cutouts), and Evan finds that the world she knew is not reality...at least not where her father is concerned.
Battling the clock and her own uncertainties, finding that she must hide from the bad guys, the good guys, and Jesse...Evan must put it all on the line to survive.
As an avid reader of the Evan Delaney thrillers, I find this to be the best adventure yet. I'm delighted to see the story expanded onto a broader canvas. Much as I love Santa Barbara, Evan's hometown, I enjoy seeing her racing around the globe even more.
Gardiner's writing is vivid and relentlessly taut.
Fasten your seatbelts -- yet again!

The times, they are a-changin'...
"Kill Chain", the fifth book in Meg Gardiner's series featuring Evan Delaney, establishes beyond question the legs for many more stories with these characters and offers up fresh possibilities at a point where many series often come unstuck. Gardiner's thrillers are tough, honest and heartfelt, and the severe emotional kicking that was the second half of "Crosscut" marked an increased maturity in both her writing and the issues her books confront - a maturity that is carried over to "Kill Chain" from the very first page: you are left in no doubt from the offset that things are going to change.

This is at heart a good old-fashioned race-against-time thriller that starts you off at a run and builds an almost irresistible momentum as it tears through its various mysteries and locations on the way to a tense and surprising showdown. Gardiner sidesteps the potential flaw of rendering her travelogue virtually irrelevant in this rush by exploring the locations in conjunction with the plot, making them a key part of proceedings rather than simply trying to distract us with new scenery. From the streets of Bangkok to a terrific sequence on the London Underground, she amps up the intrigue with a keen eye for her settings and a barrage of thrills, including what is probably the most nonchalant use of a chair as a weapon ever written.

Gardiner is a writer of great talent, filling proceedings with the kind of emotional richness that really marks her books out for me, and reminding us of the humanity and fallibility of her characters with effortless asides. She also juggles the various story elements - among them the imminent sense of threat throughout, an at times literal countdown and the changing emotional commitments of various characters - with consummate skill, and is not afraid to leave certain things hanging come the end (in a move that left me itching for the next one, so I hope she gets to it before too long!).

So, why not five stars? Well, I've come to expect great things of Ms. Gardiner after her last three books, and this can feel almost a little too convenient in places. The importance of this book in the context of the series is indisputable, and it is expertly paced and marshalled throughout, but I would now like to see Gardiner's writing shift up to the next level of which she is so clearly capable. I'd easily put this up against anything else being written today, and urge anyone who has yet to read Gardiner's books to start as soon as possible.