Meeting Evil
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
The author of the Pulitzer Prize–finalist The Feud blurs reality in this breakneck thriller following one man’s encounter with pure evil in high tops.
John Felton is a creature of habit. His job in real estate comes with no surprises; it’s respectable work he can be proud of. Routine has been kind to him, but when a normal Monday of looking after the kids gets interrupted by a ringing of his doorbell, John may have to kiss his uneventful life goodbye . . .
Richie’s car is stalled just at the bottom of the hill and he needs a push start. John agrees to help and then accepts a ride, though he’s not entire sure why. After stepping into Richie’s car, John is driven far away from the reality he once knew and dragged into Richie’s frightening world—one event at a time.
To make matters worse, the longer he spends in Richie’s company the harder it is for the people around him to distinguish John from this curly-haired devil in a baseball cap. John must put an end to Richie’s mad and murderous adventure before it reaches the most terrifying place of all—John’s very own home.
“The plot gets nicely complicated . . . and the entire contraption claps together in a great, unpredictable, satisfying calamity.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Spare, meticulous prose . . . Sharply evocative of human weakness and rage.” —The Washington Post
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Berger's ( Orrie's Story ) powerful 19th novel investigates the familiar question of why bad things happen to good people. John Felton, realtor in a ``medium-sized city'' in the Northeast, is a paradigm of decency, a ``respectable man with a wife and children'' and a ``lifetime urge to do right.'' John's nightmare begins at breakfast one morning, when he opens his door to a stranger and agrees to help with his stalled car. The car turns out to have been stolen and the stranger to have been released from a psychiatric hospital that very morning, and John's Good Samaritan deed is rewarded with a catastrophic day that snowballs into a whirlwind crime spree. After a cocktail waitress sideswipes the car, the three become a team, running up charges of hit-and-run, breaking and entering, theft, kidnapping, arson and murder. Victim and victimizer intertwine in a heart-pounding conclusion at a convenience store, and cosmic justice is meted out. Berger couches his frightening, paranoic plot with moral and philosophical underpinnings in sardonic, impeccable `fluid prose' in previous review prose.