Tear It Down

Thriller Award winner Petrie’s gripping fourth Peter Ash novel (after 2018’s Light It Up) takes the war vet to Memphis at the behest of girlfriend June Cassidy. June is concerned that her friend Wanda Wyatt, a former war photographer who’s even more psychologically damaged than Peter, is in danger. Peter soon ascertains that’s the case when Wanda’s ramshackle home is bulldozed by a garbage truck. Wanda refuses to vacate the ruined house even after a nighttime machine gun assault. But what do her attackers, two ex-con brothers, want? Meanwhile, 15-year-old homeless blues guitarist Eli Bell gets roped into a disastrous jewelry store heist by some fellow wastrels and goes on the run. When Eli steals Peter’s pickup truck at gunpoint, the inveterate do-gooder Peter decides to help the imperiled kid anyway. While logic sometimes takes a holiday as these dual stories unspool, and the finale’s high-speed car chase strains credulity, there’s no denying that Petrie is hell on wheels at mounting lethal action face-offs. A close cousin to Lee Childs’s more analytical Jack Reacher, Peter Ash is one of today’s more exciting action heroes. [em]Author tour. Agent: Barbara Poelle, Irene Goodman Literary. (Jan.) [/em]