Running Dark (Emma Caldridge Series #2)

by Jamie Freveletti

Overview

International intrigue and adventure combine in Running Dark, by Jamie Freveletti, the pulse-pounding sequel to Running from the Devil. Bestselling author Lee Child hailed Freveletti’s debut novel as, “Just terrific—full of thrills and tradecraft, pace and peril.” Now she brings back marathon runner and scientist Emma Caldwell in a gripping tale that combines terrorism, Somali pirates, and a possible chemical catastrophe as it races at breakneck speed into the most dangerous places in the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061684258
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	04/26/2011
Series:	Emma Caldridge Series , #2
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	4.20(w) x 6.70(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Jamie Freveletti is a former trial lawyer, martial artist, and runner. She is the author of four books in her own Emma Caldridge series as well as Robert Ludlum's Covert One novel, The Janus Reprisal. She lives in Chicago.

Editorial Reviews

Freveletti rummages in the thriller pantry and comes up with an armful of standard ingredients for her unremarkable second novel featuring chemist Emma Caldridge (after Running from the Devil). Shortly after Emma is blown off her feet by a car explosion while running in a South African ultramarathon, a stranger injects her arm with a drug, then disappears. Emma recovers and finishes the 55mile race in record time. To solve this mystery, she turns to her friend Edward Banner, head of Darkview, an American security company. The cast of characters eventually includes a Somali pirate, Khalil Mungabe; his boss, "The Vulture"; Richard Stark, CEO of the shady Price Pharmaceuticals; and Emma's love interest, Cameron Sumner, a private security agent aboard the cruise liner Kaiser Franz. The action heats up once Emma gets on the liner and starts battling Somali pirates, but weak plotting and contrived situations make it hard to suspend disbelief. (July)

Publishers Weekly

This fast-paced thriller makes good use of a timely topic.

Booklist on Running Dark

One entertaining read.

Mystery Scene on Running Dark

This fast-paced thriller makes good use of a timely topic.

Booklist

One entertaining read.

Mystery Scene

Biochemist-cum-action hero Emma Caldridge, barely recovered from her frightening Colombian adventure in Running from the Devil (2009), is drafted by a Blackwater-like security firm to help save a cruise ship and its dangerous cargo from Somali pirates. In Running from the Devil, Freveletti's debut, Caldridge survived a plane crash in the Colombian jungle and aided the rescue of surviving passengers who were taken hostage by guerrilla soldiers. In this sequel, she is blown "out of her shoes" by a roadside car-bomb blast while running an ultramarathon in South Africa, but she finishes the race in full stride after someone injects her with a mysterious performance-enhancing substance. Before she can figure out who injected her, she is making her way to the Gulf of Aden on assignment from the security company, Darkview, to infiltrate the cruise ship and determine what is hidden in its cache of pharmaceuticals. It's a dangerous job: "Somalia has a way of devouring whatever falls in its path. But as Emma says, ?Who better than a chemist to figure this out?' " And how can she not become involved, what with the man who saved her in Colombia, attractive government agent Cameron Sumner, on the ship? Stocked with ruthless warlords, grenade-launching baddies, duplicitous middle men, a stoic pilot and, let's not forget, the deadly box jellyfish, the book is squarely in the Peter Benchley mode, only with a female hero front and center. But while it's efficiently plotted and competently written, it lacks involving characters and a compelling voice, and it often reads more like a blueprint for a movie than a novel. Decent story, by-the-numbers execution. Agent: Barbara Poelle/Irene Goodman Agency

Kirkus Reviews