I found myself being pitched from stem to stern while reading LIFE OR DEATH. Let’s get the book’s negatives out of the way first before talking about its considerable strengths. The first is that author Michael Robotham spends a great deal of time establishing the mystery that propels the story, so much so that he is still setting it up after I believe most readers have figured out what happened. The second is that it is often difficult determining whether what one is reading is from the point of view of any particular character or the omnipresent narrator, who occasionally jumps in to editorialize about matters that have nothing to do with the story (Robotham is by no means the only fiction practitioner guilty of this). It is distracting at best and a turnoff at worst. That’s unfortunate, because steadfast readers will ultimately find this stand-alone work outside of the Joe O'Loughlin series to be a worthwhile read on its own terms.

"While his latest won’t cause you to forget Joe O'Loughlin, it may ultimately bring additional readers to the fold of Robotham’s critically and commercially acclaimed series."

Let us proceed with a discussion of what is great about LIFE OR DEATH. The tale focuses on an enigmatic and intriguing character named Audie Palmer. Multiple questions surround Palmer, not the least of which is why a prison inmate who has served a full 10-year sentence would execute an escape the night before he is about to be legally released. Palmer was tried and convicted as the sole survivor of an armored car heist that went badly wrong and resulted in the deaths of four people. The several million dollars in cash that was being transported disappeared, and Palmer has kept silent about where it might have gone. As he slowly makes his way across Texas for an initially unknown purpose, the narrative bounces back and forth between the present and the past, giving the reader some insight into Palmer’s personality --- and, very gradually, his motivations --- as well as revealing how a couple of bad decisions and worse breaks can overturn the apple cart of someone’s life.

What is almost immediately obvious is that Palmer is not a bad guy, notwithstanding the crime of which he was convicted. Wearing scars of his injury incurred at the scene of the crime, as well as multiple prison altercations at the hands of inmates and guards alike, Palmer is a marked man in the truest sense of the word. He has a couple of extremely unlikely allies on either side of the law as he pursues his quest against almost impossible odds. The question that remains unanswered throughout most of the book (unless you figure it out early on) is what Palmer’s motivation is. And why would it require him to break out of prison when his legal release was mere hours away? The answers do not come in neat or happy packages, but they do arrive in memorable ones.

LIFE OR DEATH initially puts one in the mind of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, though such a comparison oversimplifies what goes on here and is ultimately unfair to Robotham. While his latest won’t cause you to forget Joe O'Loughlin, it may ultimately bring additional readers to the fold of Robotham’s critically and commercially acclaimed series. Go with the twists and turns, even if you figure out early on where the ride is going.