The Final Twist

Part one of MWA Grand Master Deaver’s subpar third thriller featuring professional reward-seeker Colter Shaw (after 2020’s The Goodbye Man), titled “The Mission,” includes the statement: “Time until the family dies: fifty-two hours.” The explanation for this countdown comes out gradually. At a house in San Francisco, Shaw is looking for evidence his murdered father left behind about BlackBridge Corporate Solutions, whose machinations include flooding select neighborhoods with cheap drugs to drive down the price of real estate for predatory developers. His search almost proves fatal, and he narrowly escapes death from BlackBridge operatives when his estranged older brother, Russell, intervenes. A bad guy Russell kills carries a note indicating that a “kill order” has been placed on someone with the initials SP and SP’s entire family. Neither the race to save those targeted within 52 hours nor the Shaw brothers’ campaign to take down BlackBridge is as creative as the plots of Deaver’s best work. The result is more familiar than surprising. Agent: Deborah Schneider, Gelfman Schneider Literary. (May)