The Risk Agent

April 16, 2012
Bestseller Pearson (In Harm’s Way) introduces John Knox, an importer and highly trained security agent based in Shanghai, in this entertaining first in a new action series. Rutherford Risk, a security contracting firm working for the Berthold Group, a construction industry giant, hires Knox to rescue two employees who have been kidnapped. Knox takes the job because he needs the money to support his epileptic, learning-disabled brother, Tommy, and because one of the employees, Clete Danner, is an old pal. He teams with Chinese national Grace Chu, a forensic accountant and former Chinese army intelligence agent, who’s a friend of the other missing man, Lu Hao. As Pearson makes abundantly clear, China is a land of great mystery, so the motives of everyone concerned, including other operatives who are searching for Danner and Lu, are tangled into interlocking webs of deceit and crime on both national and international levels. Thriller fans will look forward to seeing more of Knox. Agent: Amy Berkower, Writers House.

June 1, 2012
If you have the right incentives, dollars in the billions can be made in Shanghai, where capitalism wrestles with communism. So says Pearson (In Harm's Way, 2010, etc.) in this first in a new series of thrillers. Of course, "incentives" means bribery and overpayment. And that means more business for Rutherford Risk, specializing in corporate security. Now Rutherford has only days to free Lu Hao and Clete Danner, an American who had been surveilling Lu for Rutherford. The ransom is meager, but stakes are high. Lu delivered and accounted for incentives paid by The Bethold Group, an American company building Shanghai's Xuan Tower, the world's tallest building. Suspects are plentiful, especially considering entrepreneurs like Yang Cheng were resentful of the American company's success. With private investigation illegal in China, Rutherford reaches out for John Knox, an import/exporter with a long history as a military contractor, and Grace Chu, an American-educated, Chinese army intelligence veteran who's currently a Hong Kong forensic accountant. With subplots involving Grace's muddied love affair with Lu's brother, Knox's need to protect his brother and partner, Tommy, who is autistic, and Danner's shadowy connections, Pearson's narrative grabs readers and rockets through hundreds of pages of nonstop action laced by violence, double-dealing and shady characters. First, there are the Mongolians, exiles working for a chimerical Bejing bigwig. There's Shen Deshi, an inspector for the People's Armed Police, "the Gestapo of China." Most mysterious is mainland China itself, "an anything-goes market economy layered over a police state." Knox knows China, but he's a waiguoren (foreigner), never to be completely familiar with "the complexities of the interwoven social and professional etiquette involving the Chinese." And then there is guanxi (connections), and that untranslatable matter of "face." A cunning thriller worthy of the promised series, especially if the fascinating Grace Chu reappears regularly. Exotic locale. Credible heroics. Vicarious thrills. Fans will want more, and soon.

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Starred review from April 1, 2012

Rich with the atmosphere of Shanghai, where best-selling author Pearson (In Harms Way) lived with his family during 2008-09, and filled with breathtaking suspense, this international thriller series opener begins with the disappearance of Lu Hao--along with his financial records of bribes he'd been paying out for a U.S. construction company operating in Shanghai. The woman who helped him get the job, Grace Chu, who was educated in America and also has military training, currently contracts out as a forensic accountant for an international security firm. Because of her connections and involvement, Grace is given the task of finding Lu and his missing records. John Knox, an import/export entrepreneur with friends in the same security company, is recruited as a Shanghai insider to deliver the ransom and/or extract the hostage. It complicates matters that private investigations are illegal in today's China, so they must work outside the police. VERDICT Famous for his plotting and attention to details, Pearson is off to a great start with his compelling and multilayered new protagonists. His many fans as well as readers who love international thrillers won't be disappointed. Buy multiple copies. [See Prepub Alert, 12/5/11.]--Vicki L. Gregory, Sch. of Information, Univ. of South Florida, Tampa

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2012
Pearson, author of the Sheriff Walt Fleming series set in Sun Valley, Idaho, trades snowy slopes for the teeming streets of Shanghai in this first entry in a new international series. When the Chinese employee of an American construction company is snatched in the middle of the day in downtown Shanghai, the security firm of Rutherford Risk enlists two top-notch operatives to locate the hostage and negotiate his release. Forensic accountant Grace Cu is a cool, whip-smart beauty trained in the Chinese military. John Knox is a combat veteran with focus and ferocity in equal measure. The pair must contend with a slew of shady characters: thugs, spies, and wily executives with greed and ambition to burn. Pearson renders steady suspense and a vibrant portrait of a city that blends history, mystery, and a remarkably resilient citizenry. Shortly after a tsunami-like storm rages through Shanghai, writes Pearson, the city sprang back to life as if nothing had happened. . . . It was like kicking an anthill, only to see the ants back to work minutes later rebuilding the hill. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

October 1, 2012
As one of the two leads of this contemporary suspense novel set in China is female forensic accountant (and, conveniently, former Chinese intelligence agent) Grace Chu, narrator Todd Haberkorn must create a compelling and believable woman's voice. Fortunately, he does, which removes any barrier to an effective rendering of the first book, about efforts to rescue an employee of an American company snatched in China, in a promising new series from Pearson. The other protagonist, John Knoxâan importer with security training based in Shanghaiâwho's introduced somewhat the worse for wear after more than a week in the jungles of Cambodia, could come across as a cliché, the typical macho action hero, but Haberkorn helps to make him more than that, injecting an undertone of wry gallows humor to his performance. A Putnam hardcover.