Title: Fatal Option

Author: Chris Beakey

Publisher: Post Hill Press

Pub. Date: 21 February 2017

Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Recommended, Fiction

Hang on to your seats, people! This is a fast-paced wild ride from the very first page. It would be difficult to unfold the plot without giving some serious spoilers, which I do not do. Suffice it to say that Stephen has no idea what brutal awfulness is coming for him, even after he thinks the worst (his wife’s mysterious death) has already happened.  Sara and her brother Kenneth have no idea what unintended consequences can be, or what shades of darkness may hide in seemingly normal people’s lives. None of them know how a single choice can change many lives, or how fatal connections can be made anytime, anywhere in everyday life. They don’t know it until it is too late, and once they are careening down that black mountain winter road, there is no stopping what is coming…and coming…and coming….

Read it, you’ll see.

This book is written so tightly that I did not want to stop reading until I was done. When I finished, I took a deep breath, my first in hours, and promptly handed it off to a person (my mother, to whom I have listened ever since she finished it many years ago) pining for a book as intense as Intensity by Dean Koontz. She says she stayed up until she fell asleep, picked it back up as she made coffee in the morning, and took it with her to the bathroom all day. .She is still talking about Fatal Option being the closest she has gotten to that wonderful sustained tension she felt with the Koontz. No small praise. Way to go, Chris Beakey!

It is true, the action and suspense continues to rise throughout Fatal Option like a flood tide-truly thrilling, all-encompassing, spreading out and up in an inexorable consumption of reason and other sane plot boundaries. It all makes sense, though I don’t know how. It even has a satisfying ending. The characters are easy to get to know, good or bad. Their choices may be cringe worthy, but it is easy to empathize. Beakey sets a mood sufficient to thrill, and the chill makes you want to grab a warm blanket to snuggle down. Overall, a fine read.

If you love a tight thriller, this is a good one.

A copy was received for free in exchange for an honest review.