Two Nights In Lisbon by Chris Pavone (2022) Now here's an interesting mash-up of thrillers for your reading pleasure......an international based tale (with all sorts of CIA folk and U.S. Embassy personnel) combined with a good old fashioned domestic U. S. A. dysfunction mystery.
Throw in a backstory that ripples and quakes right up the highest levels of Washington D.C. and you've got "Two Nights In Lisbon".
We're far from the world's biggest Chris Pavone fan.......We can still remember "The Expats" trying our patience to the breaking point. But we had a much better time and far more enjoyable, entertaining read with this one, even though it's lengthy and reveals its many secrets at a slow deliberate pace.
And as this strange collision of domestic thriller and global politics comes together, we got a kick out the author's right-on-the-money observations about the state of where we are today.....in the new age of relentless social media, toxic political divisions and the new increased efforts to hold the power elite accountable for.....well, let's just say a host of sins.
The plot seems to begin with a straightforward disappearance of a wealthy American businessman in Lisbon - and his wife's increasingly desperate efforts to find out what became of him.
But as you might imagine in a story like this, there's way, way more here than meets the eye, much to the confusion and growing suspicions of the Lisbon police and the CIA contingent stationed in the city.
The American wife, Ariel Pryce has a twisty backstory that unravels in bits and pieces and her missing husband John, seems to hold an equal amount of mystery swirling around him as to the how, where, and why of his dropping out of sight.. And before long, the plight of this odd couple manages to somehow escalate into very current events, with potentially monumental repercussions back at the halls of power in the U.S.
Along the way to the book's big reveals and final twists, we felt Chris Pavone, took some amount of devilish fun depicting a few of his fictional political figures as uncomfortably close to reality, But every reader should decide on their own who they think's on the receiving end of the jabs here.
The book does finally uncork a conclusion both timely and satisfying which more than justified sticking with it to the end (unlike that miserable time we spent with Pavone's debut novel)......so by all means, 'book' an armchair flight to Lisbon and find out why this mysterious gone guy and his wife shake up the spies and D.C. bigwigs alike. 4 stars (****).
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