So Much Can Happen in Just Two Nights in Lisbon.

 Two Nights in Lisbon - Chris Pavone

After reading the first pages of Chris Pavone’s latest, Two Nights in Lisbon, a more skeptical reader might feel that buzz somewhere deep of their brain that suggests, “There’s something off about this.” I know I did… but once I found myself immersed in the urgency of Ariel Pryce’s desperate search for the husband who walked out of their Portuguese hotel and disappeared into the morning sunlight, I forgot about it. Mostly.

A frantic Ariel reaches out to the Lisbon police and the American embassy, certain that her husband has been kidnapped. Despite police assurances that her (much younger) husband has probably just gone on for drugs or hooked up with one of the many beauties Lisbon boasts, Ariel is sure that he’s been taken. A demand for three million euros’ ransom makes her point.

Where does an ordinary person find three million euros in forty-eight hours? Ariel comes to a decision: fifteen years ago, before she stopped being actress-slash trophy wife Laurel Turner, she signed a non-disclosure agreement with a powerful man, a man with access to that kind of cash. We’re talking really, really, really rich… and potentially even more powerful. A desperate phone call to get the ransom from this man piques the interest of not just the Lisbon cops but also the CIA and an enterprising reporter. After that frantic call, everything goes wrong.

Or does it?

Chris Pavone has built his career writing novels about the adventures of American expatriates in various world capitals, novels such as The Expats and The Paris Diversion. Like his other books, Two Nights in Lisbon falls into the “thriller” classification, but this is a thriller without the bloody shoot-‘em-ups and wild sex that so often figures in the genre. If you’re expecting a thriller in the vein of James Patterson or Robert Ludlum, you might want to look elsewhere. In truth, this isn’t your everyday pulse-pounding page-turner. Quite the contrary, the plot reminds me of a tractor-trailer: slow to start, but picking up speed as you go until the momentum is impossible to ignore.

Pavone’s work is more subtle, a thriller of the mind instead of the adrenal glands. For Two Nights in Lisbon, he introduces an unreliable narrator; except the reader never realizes that unreliability until the final reel in a final twist that would make O. Henry envious. Just don’t forget those few first pages.

Pavone’s delicious international thriller displays the mastery of character development and plotting for which he is already well-known, combining smoothly with an attention to the details of the foreign capital in which he has set his tale. Besides a gift for realistic dialog and setting, the author has also cultivated a talent for misdirection; all the better to engage the reader.

Personally, I dislike throwaway blurb fodder like “unputdownable” and “propulsive,” but thankfully Two Nights in Lisbon was neither of these. Oh, it was close to “unputdownable” but more to the point, it was thoughtful. Props to Chris for shining a light on a dirty little secret of people who have a fixer on permanent retainer.

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