The Confessor

Torture expert Geiger must confront his past to protect the only people he cares about in Smith’s riveting sequel to 2012’s The Inquisitor, the author’s impressive debut. In The Inquisitor, Geiger, who once called himself an “information retrieval” expert and used torture, both physical and psychological, to force people to reveal their secrets, refused to torture the 12-year-old son of David Matheson, the head of an online whistle-blower site. Now Geiger has disappeared and is presumed dead. When he learns that his former partner, Harry Boddicker, and David have been lured to Paris by his nemesis, torture expert Dalton, he has no choice but to go there in search of them. Although Geiger, who’s largely self-sufficient, gets help from Rosanna Soames, a government agent, as well as some unlikely sources, Dalton holds all the cards and sets the rules in the ensuing cat-and-mouse game. Geiger has to make some terrible sacrifices before this brilliant, sometimes brutal, thriller reaches a stunning climax. Agents: Nat Sobel, Sobel Weber Associates. (July)