EDGE

TITLE: EDGE
AUTHOR: JEFFREY DEAVER
Pages: 420
Date: 11/12/2010
Grade: 4
Details: Stand-alone
Library

A stand-alone thriller by Jeffrey Deaver, set in the world of protection officers.
A lifter is a professional who can be hired to find people, get information from them by any means, and kill them and anybody they have to go through to get to their target.
Henry Loving, is such a lifter and has targeted the family of police detective Ryan Kessler. Appointed to protect Kessler and his family is protection officer Corte, who had to listen powerlessly six year ago while Loving tortured and killed his colleague and mentor.
Corte now has several goals. He needs to protect the Kesslers, find out why someone has set Loving on them, stop Loving and discover who hired Loving.
Corte is a true professional, dedicated to his job of protecting those targeted and finding those who want them. He is also a man on a mission, determined to not only stop Loving but to capture him as well. Corte is a man who doesn't smile, doesn't get personally involved with those he protects, and appears to have no private life.
But, Corte has a problem since it is not clear why the Kessler family is being targeted, or even which member of the family is the one with knowledge that could be harmful to someone. And while Corte is good at playing the protection game and staying one step ahead of his opponents, Loving is just as good. With the personal history between Loving and Corte, the stakes in this game are even higher than they normally are.
This is not a mystery in the strict sense of the word since it's clear from the start that Loving is the man who must be stopped. The mystery here is who Loving is actually after, and why. Once that has been established, the rest will fall into place.
This was a good thriller; I don't think Deaver is capable of writing a bad thriller. But, although I liked the story, I didn't feel any attachment to it or the characters while I was reading the book. I also found the book surprisingly easy to put down and ignore at times. Still, it's not so much that there is anything wrong with this book, but rather that it isn't quite as good as the Lincoln Ryhme or Kathryn Dance books.