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Overview
Local television reporter Sam Stevens is consumed by his failing marriage and, more than that, by the psychological harm his wife is doing to their ten-year-old son. As Sam covers a once-in-a-lifetime story---one that has turned Webster County into bedlam but is at last providing Sam with an opportunity for media stardom---he suddenly sees an even better chance: to solve his personal problems forever.
But there’s another player thrust into the national spotlight along with Sam: It’s Sheriff Billy Wyatt, who’s in way over his head. The FBI is breathing down his neck, and the national press highlights his every bungle. He’s confronting a madman---and his own limits. Can he outsmart either?
Out of elements that thriller readers have come to expect, Jonathan Stone has woven a story they assuredly will not expect. In whirlwind action and hurricane prose that echo the best of James Patterson and Harlan Coben, Stone is in top form here, delivering a tale about the unchecked power of the media and the unreasonable passions of fatherhood---with a payoff that will stun and startle, yet make perfect sense.
Parting Shot is a shot of adrenaline. It’s a bullet that rotates wildly till it finds its target---deep in the reader’s imagination. It’s the latest work from a writer whose fiction Ian Rankin has hailed as “prime entertainment” and T. Jefferson Parker has called “clever, bold, and a little nasty.”
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Stone takes a breather from his Julian Palmer series (The Cold Truth, etc.) to pursue what had to be an irresistible high concept for a stand-alone thriller. TV reporter Sam Stevens is working the biggest story of his life-a sniper has killed nine randomly chosen citizens of "Webster County," which could be anywhere U.S.A. Sam's demanding on-air job is made even more difficult by having to constantly deal with the sluttish wife he despises, Denise. Then Sam gets an idea, which savvy readers will see coming early on; what they won't see is the first jaw-dropping twist that turns Sam's carefully plotted path to freedom into an unexpected road to perdition. Readers who are veterans of the serial killer genre will think they're witnessing more of the same tired conventions, only to be confounded and amazed when they're tricked time and again by this master plotter. There's too much interior dialogue, but never mind; turn the page and a new rabbit will come leaping out of Stone's imaginative hat. (June) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.Kirkus Reviews
A sniper has already taken down nine blameless citizens, apparently at random. No one knows who the tenth will be-well, almost no one. Boundlessly ambitious Sam Stevens loves his job as a local TV reporter but hates his wife. It's a marriage in extremis whose participants waste no opportunity to maim each other emotionally. The union reaches a new low, however, when Sam realizes that beautiful, heartless Denise has now established their ten-year-old son as a surrogate target. "I see you in him," she says bitterly during a typical free-for-all. This intolerable situation will irreparably scar Tommy if it continues, Sam decides. So he discontinues it in a manner as clever as it is brutal. Then, true to the law of unintended consequences, Sam receives an unsettling visit late one night from ex-Special Forces soldier Ray Fine, "a man trained not just in killing but in terror." He knows what Sam's done, Fine says, calmly explaining why the act requires a sequel. So begins a dance macabre that places Sam Stevens and Ray Fine in a lethal gavotte with a series of unlucky, unsuspecting partners chosen at random. A hyper-plotter who trends to skimp on character development, Stone (Breakthrough, 2003, etc.) leaves his readers with dueling cold-blooded murderers but no rooting interest.Book Details
Published
April 1, 2007
Publisher
St. Martin's Press
Pages
288
ISBN
9781429909273