Afterburn: A Novel - Softcover

Harrison, Colin

3.56

349 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312978707 ISBN 13: 9780312978709

Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2001

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Power. Seduction. Greed. If you get too close, you might get burned.

A People Page-Turner of the Week

Charlie Ravitch is driven by power. As an international corporate tycoon he's well-skilled in the art of the deal. As a former Vietnam POW he still carries the scars of war. As a husband and father on the hard side of fifty he's on a quest for immortality-- and for a woman who can make every dream come true. No matter what it costs.

Christina Welles is driven by greed. As a prison parolee, she's a veteran of dangerous-- and seductive-- relationships, a cunning woman well-schooled in the art of manipulation. Her bid to stay alive on the streets means outrunning her past, and escaping a lie that threatens every life she touches. No matter what it takes.

In a moment of chance, two lives are about to intersect. In a nightmarish twist of fate, two obsessions are about to be indulged. And in a world where anything goes, one false move can destroy them both...

An Entertainment Weekly Best Book of the Year

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Review:

This tour de force by the author of Manhattan Nocturne is a genre-bending literary thriller that deserves all the pre-publishing buzz it's received. From the prologue, set in the closing days of the Vietnam War, to the denouement 25 years later in the meatpacking district of Manhattan, it crackles with electricity and keeps the reader pinned in place; this is a book that's truly impossible to put down.

Harrison's three protagonists are so well drawn that their individual obsessions rather than his complex plot seem to drive the narrative. Former fighter pilot Charlie Ravich is a wealthy telecommunications CEO desperate to perpetuate his name by any means, including a surrogate mother; his only son is dead and his daughter is infertile. Christina Welles is an Ivy League-educated mathematics whiz who went to prison for her role in a Mafia theft ring. And Rick Bocca, Christina's former lover, is hiding from the mob boss who has arranged Christina's early release to regain the millions he believes she stole from him. Harrison's observations are acute: he can describe the most horrific torture as deftly as he can write a tender love scene. But his ability to weave the separate stories of his main characters together without sacrificing a bit of momentum is truly dazzling; all three of them live in the mind long after the novel's harrowing climax. This is the real "afterburn" of the title, although it may get a second definition if the book makes as rapid an ascent to the top of the bestseller lists as it deserves. --Jane Adams

About the Author:

COLLIN HARRISON is the deputy editor of Harper's and the author of Bodies Electric, Break and Enter, and Manhattan Nocturne. He lives with his wife, novelist Kathryn Harrison, in Brooklyn.

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