Matthew Becker: Run
Debut
This book is by a former customer of ours, who, as a kid, used to shop with his family at our store. He and his brother gobbled up thrillers like they were candy, and I’m happy to say, Becker has now written an excellent one of his own. I have rules when I’m reading a thriller, and if they don’t meet them, I always feel a lack. They are: upping the ante; the seemingly unsolvable problem; the twist; specifity; and pace.
Becker ups the ante right off the bat. Ben and Veronica, a happy, seemingly ideal couple, are suddenly split apart when Veronica disappears after a mass shooting in a Washington DC park. Immediately, the reader is on Ben’s side as he tries to find his wife, the only clue being a mysterious text she’d sent him out of the blue before her disappearance. There’s the unsolvable problem: where is Veronica, and why has she disappeared?