The Running Boy

Dan Pollock's The Running Boy is an excellent international thriller! It combines a story echoing today's headlines with the author's intimate knowledge of Los Angeles. The city and its ethnic neighborhoods come to life under Dan Pollock's experienced pen. The story is not only exciting and fast paced but an outstanding meditation on fatherhood and our connections to the other people in our lives. As Ethan and Andy run through the San Gabriel Mountains to the streets of Hollywood you will enjoy the chase and think a little about your own relationships and how much you would do to protect the ones you love. If Raymond Chandler were alive, he would love The Running Boy.

The story starts with a gripping sequence of events leading up to the sad murder of Bernadette, Andy's mother. The boy is alone now, and running. The pace does not slacken during this tense drama. Dan's interesting use of short chapters serves to intensify the pace, and his descriptions of scenes are so vivid you can really imagine you are there.
Aided by an unlikely hero, Ethan, Andy breathlessly tries to escape from two Russian killers. This well written spy thriller has great human interest with surprising twists and turns along the way. The cavalry, in the form of US law enforcement, eventually join the battle against the Russian organised crime mob that are relentlessly pursuing Andy and Ethan.
The tide finally turns against the vicious mobsters and all ends as well as it could, with surprises coming thick and fast right to the very end. It really was a very enjoyable read. The complexity of the story took some keeping up with, but it was well worth the ride. A definite must read.

A highly entertaining read. Too many coincidences helping out the protagonist, but amusing that they kept happening. A bit unbelievable at the end, too, that he so easily overcame his lifetime psychosis, but it sure made the ending satisfying!