Pavone’s EX-PATS An Indie Best Seller
Debuting on the Indie Fiction Best Seller list at #10 is The Expats by Chris Pavone (it is also lands at #47 on the USA Today list; you can expect it to appear on the upcoming NYT list).
The author’s first novel, about Kate, a CIA agent who packs it in to be a stay-at-home Mom when her husband moves the family to Luxembourg, is a March 2012 Indie Next List Great Read. It got strong pre-pub reviews, but the NYT‘s Janet Maslin nearly damned it with faint praise, noting its “well-calibrated monotony. This book’s abundant treacheries and tricks arise from the fact that its heroine, Kate Moore, is bored stiff.”
As Kate’s husband begins to behave strangely, her instincts go on red alert. In the NYT Book Review‘s mystery columnist Marilyn Stasio says,
Pavone is full of sharp insights into the parallels between political espionage and marital duplicity, and he understands the disorientation Kate shares with other expats — including Pavone himself, who joined that community when he gave up a career in publishing after his wife took a job in Luxembourg.
The UK’s Guardian, calls it “Expertly and intricately plotted, with a story spiralling into disaster and a satisfyingly huge amount of double crossing, The Expats certainly doesn’t feel like a first novel. This is an impressively assured entry to the thriller scene.”
Several libraries are showing holds as high as 20/1 on fairly strong ordering.
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RH Audio; Thorndike Large Print; OverDrive eBook and audio