February 2014
Last April, I read RUNNER by Patrick Lee in manuscript and still remember being breathless when I read it. Thrillers that give you many “aha” moments are the ones you don’t forget --- and RUNNER certainly has many of those!
Sam Dryden is a retired Ranger special forces agent who once was part of a team that ran a lot of his operations off the grid. Now he has rebuilt his life in a small Southern California town. He’s a loner, having lost both his wife and young daughter in an accident. As an aside here, I knew someone who was a special agent for the FBI, and we talked one night about how one adjusts after having lived that kind of an adrenaline-filled life. How does one go from missions at Ruby Ridge, Waco and Yemen, to carpooling, grocery shopping and normal life? He told me that between the memories and the change in the pace of your life, it’s a real challenge. For years, he was the guy coaching baseball who might get a call in the middle of a game. It would not be that his wife needed milk, but rather he was wheels up on an assignment in two hours.
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