Something Old: Blast, by Tony Kenrick, Robindale, 1983

Something New: Scavenger, by David Morrell, Vanguard, 2007

In David Morrell’s new thriller, Scavenger, former New York police detective Frank Balenger is deliberately sucked into a drama he wants no part of, and ends up fighting to save the life of the woman he loves.

It’s a way-cool setup: Balenger’s girlfriend, who he acquired in the earlier book Creepers, is kidnapped along with five other phenomenally capable people, and is sent out on a deadly scavenger hunt for reasons unknown. At the same time Levenger is manipulated into joining the hunt from the outside, and it’s a terrific combination of enigma and adrenaline. Morrell drops you in a sleek race car and launches you on a tense high-speed chase.

As time goes on the ride deteriorates somewhat, and the engine coughs a little. By the end of the book some of the questions that flew by too quickly to notice are easier to see, and you might find yourself asking “But why would he do that?” too many times. But as Morrell has pointed out in essays, nothing makes for better suspense than a scavenger hunt combined with a deadline, and that’s what we have here. Along the way there is some fun detail about time capsules, and an interesting but not quite convincingly executed concept about video games and reality.

In Tony Kenrick’s Blast, former New York police detective Gene Charters is deliberately sucked into a drama he wants no part of, and ends up fighting to save the life of the woman he loves.

It’s a way-cool setup: the mayor of New York City receives a letter announcing that a bomb is going to go off in the Hotel Amsterdam lobby at a specific date and time, and that “no matter how hard you look, you will not find it in time.” This turns out to be true, and more bombs, an extortion demand, and a very twisty plot follow. Charters is not hired by a worried citizen, or the police — he’s threatened with death by a second villain if he doesn’t find out who is setting off the bombs. Why does this villain want to know? Well… you should read the book.

This is a fun, beautifully paced, and witty book that deserves to be better known. The central premise — the way the bomber is hiding the bombs — is brilliant and original (I can’t believe the idea hasn’t been lifted for a movie), and the way our hero outwits the bomber, the city of New York, the creep who hires him, and the actual evil behind it all, are all diabolically clever.

Kenrick was an Australian who lived in Connecticut, Toronto, and Majorca, and worked in advertising, and his North American language is dead-on.

Unlike Morrell’s Scavenger, Blast is not a thrill ride from beginning to end. A lot of the narrative drive comes from the curiosity generated by the seeming impossiblity of the killer’s ability to tell the police where the bombs will go off in advance without the police being able to stop them. You won’t believe it when you find out.

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(Bonus: Kenrick wrote another terrific little book, A Tough One to Lose (1972), about kidnappers who abscond with an entire jumbo jet full of passengers. But this being Kenrick, they don’t just hijack it, exactly: they make it disappear altogether.)

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