Long Time Lost

December 12, 2016
Former lawyer Kate Sutherland, the heroine of this disappointing thriller from Ewan (Dark Tides), is in witness protection on the Isle of Man, waiting to testify against Russell Lane for murder. Russell’s rich sociopath brother, Connor, would rather see her dead, and he has the resources to find her. She manages to kill the man sent to eliminate her and escape into what she hopes is a more secure hiding place, with the aid of Nick Miller and his skilled crew. Miller himself is one of the vanished, unable even to reappear long enough to clear his name in the killing of his wife and children. Things start to unravel immediately as others under Miller’s protection are exposed and threatened, and he and Kate run from one end of Europe to the other to attempt to protect them. An overabundance of unrealistic scary situations heighten the suspense but make the action hard to follow. The continuous high threat level drains the reader’s emotions, resulting in far too much of what could have been a good thing. Agent: Vivien Green, Sheil Land Associates (U.K.).

January 1, 2017
Ewan takes us on a Jason Bournelike wild ride through Europe with just a backpack and a warning: There's no going back. It starts on the Isle of Man, where the official witness-protection program is not doing its job guarding the key witnesses in a case against a ruthless crime family. Then Nick Miller steps in to do what the government can't, providing new identities and new lives for those at risk, maintaining contact with his clients through an Internet computer game. Nick, a former police officer, has himself been living under an assumed name in an ongoing effort to solve the murders of his wife and daughter. His team is small but extremely dedicated. Everyone has their own reason for wanting to help. This is Ewan's fourth stand-alone suspense novel, following Dark Tides (2014). His characterizations, fast pace, and locales here equal those in his outstanding Good Thief series. Suggest this for fans of page-turner Gilly Macmillan, for those who enjoy odds-are-against-us narratives in the style of Timothy Hallinan, and for devotees of Thomas Perry's Jane Whitefield series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)