Panic

July 11, 2005
An unassuming documentary filmmaker is plunged into the dark world of contract killing and espionage in this superior, fast-paced thriller, Abbott's eighth outing (after Do Unto Others
). Evan Casher's safe, quiet life in Austin, Tex., begins to unravel when he discovers his mother murdered and barely escapes death himself, the first of dozens of close calls and harrowing twists as he finds himself the prey of a dangerous freelance spy ring known as the Deeps. This shadowy network is led by Jargo, a cunning, brutally efficient point man who believes that Casher has a computer file containing secret information about the organization's contacts. Casher is baffled until he learns the stunning truth: his mother, a travel photographer, and his father, a computer consultant, were actually secret agents, and large aspects of Casher's life were complete fabrications. (Turns out his girlfriend also works for the Deeps.) The action jumps from Texas to London to Florida as Casher tries to stay a step ahead of Jargo, find the computer file and rescue his father, who's being held by the Deeps. Abbott has fashioned another burst of white-knuckled suspense that's extremely hard to put down.

Starred review from October 31, 2005
Not many audio versions of thrillers start with the bang that Abbott and Ganser bring to this story about a young man whose life explodes one spring morning. Evan Casher is a rising young documentary filmmaker, living in Houston, who is awakened early by a phone call from his mother, begging him to rush to the family home in Austin for reasons she can't explain on the phone. Ganser, veteran of 150 audio books, perfectly catches the mixture of frustration and annoyance in Evan's reluctant agreement and his attempts to reach his father—supposedly off on a sales trip to Australia—as well as his new ladyfriend, Carrie, back in Houston. Then, in a beautifully written and sensitively read moment of pure horror made all the more powerful by its understatement, Evan arrives in Austin to find his mother's body on the kitchen floor. She has been garroted with a wire. Her killers attack Evan, who is saved by the arrival of a mysterious stranger with a shotgun. Ganser brings all of Abbott's many characters—the killers, the baffled police and the ambiguous Carrie, who might be working for the enemy—to instant, unhyped life, letting Abbott's story about a man whose past has been an elaborate pretense unwind with breath-catching strength. Simultaneous release with the Dutton hardcover (Reviews, July 11).