[re-posted from my old blog]

Woo wee, that was a fun, fast, furious ride! I just finished up "The Blonde" by Duane Swierczynski, after just starting it a couple of days ago. Yeah, it is short but it is also in that "nearly impossible to put down" category. You just have to see what happens next. I think I'll have to pick up his debut novel, [b:The Wheelman|548772|The Wheelman|Duane Swierczynski|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316727960s/548772.jpg|536021]. I mean, you have to have high hopes for a mystery thriller that starts out:

"I poisoned your drink,"

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"Um, I don't think I did."

The blonde lifted her cosmopolitan. "Cheers."

And then doesn't let you go for a second. The book is very accurately described on the back cover thusly:

It's your typical love story: Boy meets girl. Girl kidnaps boy. Boy loses girl and is pursued by a professional killer carrying a decapitated head in a gym bag.

There's poison, nano-technology, heads blowing up, assassinations, puking, cab rides and even a little kinky sex. Swierczynski does a pretty good job of keeping it all straight, although there was a least one gaping logical hiccup. But in a book so short and so fast, I hardly even noticed. If you like mystery/thrillers at all, you owe it to yourself to grab this book!