About the book: “Give me one name. One person. And I will make them disappear.”
Sarah
is a young professor struggling to prove herself in a workplace
controlled by the charming and manipulative Alan Hawthorne, a renowned
scholar and television host. The beloved professor rakes in
million-dollar grants for the university where Sarah works—so his
inappropriate treatment of female colleagues behind closed doors has
gone unchallenged for years. And Sarah is his newest target.
When
Hawthorne’s advances become threatening, she’s left with nowhere to
turn. Until the night she witnesses an attempted kidnapping of a young
child on her drive home, and impulsively jumps in to intervene. The
child’s father turns out to be a successful businessman with dangerous
connections—and her act of bravery has put this powerful man in her
debt. He lives by his own brutal code, and all debts must be repaid. In
the only way he knows how. The man gives Sarah a burner phone and an
unbelievable offer. A once-in-a-lifetime deal that can make all her
problems disappear.
No consequences. No traces. No chance of being found out. All it takes is a 29-second phone call.
Because everyone has a name to give. Don’t they?
Publication Date: September 10, 2019
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Genre: Thriller
**Does contain some language and adult situations**
My thoughts: 29 Seconds is the second novel by T.M. Logan that I’ve had the chance to read. While I enjoyed it just as much as his debut novel, Lies, the book is quite different. In Lies, the main event of the story takes place at the beginning of the book and there is a cat and mouse chase throughout the rest of the story leaving the readers on the edge of their seats. In 29 Seconds there’s quite the buildup to the main event. The phone call that the story receives its title from doesn’t take place until approximately halfway through the book. But the first half of that book isn’t just wasted space or words thrown on a page. Uh-huh. The first half of this book builds up to the main event, that 29-second phone call, that may or may not change Sarah’s life. For me, the author did a fantastic job of building up to the phone call. We get to know Sarah as a person and what her life is like with her husband who has left her for someone else. While we hear much about him we never really get to know him as a person, which is fine. Readers also get to know Sarah’s father and the relationship between him and Sarah. And there’s a great deal of time spent getting to know and thus despising the one and only Professor Alan Hawthorne. I’m not quite sure I’ve ever hated a character as much as I did this guy. He’s a bully who uses sexual harassment to get what he wants. He’s narcissistic and creepy and just plain nasty. T.M. Logan did a great job of creating the perfect character for readers to love to hate. I wanted every single bad thing that could have happened to this character to happen to him. I despised him and wanted to make that phone call myself.
One character in the book has a pretty important role though we don’t see him much. That’s James Grosvenor, the father of the child Sarah rescues. I enjoyed the short time spent with this character. He exuded wealth and power. It was effortless to picture this guy sitting in an office talking to Sarah and offering up his services to her. There was just something about this character that was so interesting and I was drawn to him. I would have actually liked for him to have had a bigger role in the story so I could read more about him.
While this book wasn’t as fast-paced as Lies I enjoyed it just as much. I liked the way the story played out letting readers get to know the characters and build attachments to them. T.M. Logan does a phenomenal job of telling stories that capture the reader’s attention and doesn’t let go until the end. T.M. Logan is on my must-read author list and I can’t wait to read more by this talented author.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher and wasn’t required to write a review. All opinions are mine
About the author: Tim was born in Berkshire and studied in London and Cardiff before becoming a national newspaper journalist. He currently writes full-time and lives in Nottinghamshire with his wife and two children.
His debut thriller Lies (2017) sold more than 350,000 copies and was one of Amazon’s biggest selling e-books of 2017. Together with his second standalone thriller, 29 Seconds (2018), his books are now published in a dozen countries around the world including the USA, South Korea, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Romania and the Netherlands.
His next thriller takes place over a sweltering summer week in the south of France, as four best friends see the holiday of a lifetime turn into a nightmare of suspicion, betrayal and murder… The Holiday is due to be published in the UK by Bonnier Zaffre on 13 June 2019.
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The Barefoot Bookworm 