Two Nights In Lisbon

The more I think about Chris Pavone's thriller Two Nights In Lisbon (#1,105), the less I like it.  I did enjoy his fleeting descriptions of Lisbon, a city I would return to at the drop of a hat, but that wasn't enough to justify the characters or the premise of this twisted tale.

It involves the kidnapping of an American businessman.  His older wife wakes to find John Wright missing.  She doesn't hesitate to report his disappearance to the Portuguese police.  Since he's only been gone a matter of hours, they are in no rush to send out search parties.  Frustrated, she tries the American Embassy with similar results.  When the ransom call comes, she has only forty-eight hours to raise three million euros in cash.  Where can she, of all people, find that kind of cash?

Lies, deceit, and manipulation are the root of this story.  The more I read, the less I liked any of the characters.  The introspective passages of the former Laura Turner drag on and on at the expense of the book's pacing.  The John Grisham cover blurb was wrong: I could put this book down, and wished I had done so sooner.  I would not recommend this book.