Tom Mitcheltree Blink of an Eye

Blink of an Eye

Tom Mitcheltree

Intrigue, Jan 2004, $24.95, 254 pp.

ISBN 1890768537

While studying at Harvard to be a lawyer, Grant Sutherland also worked in the homicide division in Boston. One night a young man came at him with what Grant thought was a gun and the homicide detective killed him. Grant later found out it was a knife and he has had trouble living with the guilt. After he obtained his degree, he accepted a job in Paris as a field agent for the U.S. embassy Legal Attach Services.

On his second day on the job he is called in to investigate the deaths of two young people who were murdered on their way home from clubbing. One is the granddaughter of a powerful American billionaire and the other victim is the son of a Bolivian diplomat. Upon examining the bodies, Grant knows this is the work of the Assassin, an international high-priced hitman who was involved in one of his Boston homicide cases. When Grant starts asking too many questions, he gets the wrong person nervous. The Assassin goes after Grant by trying to kill his beautiful co-worker; now the case has become very personal.

Tom Mitcheltree has written a very intense investigative thriller placed in a country where the principles of law are very different then the ones in the USA. Despite the serious tone of the book, the author uses humor to lighten up the storyline that becomes too tense at times. The protagonist is a very unusual but likeable chap who acts according to his beliefs and bends the rules when necessary. BLINK OF AN EYE is a must read for those who like profound action packed thrillers.

Harriet Klausner