The Paris Diversion by Chris Pavone
Gripping, fast-paced, and sleek, The Paris Diversion (Crown) is an espionage thriller of unrelenting tension and surprise.
Chris Pavone’s fourth novel is a sequel to New York Times bestseller The Expats and it takes place over the course of a single day and begins by compellingly introducing its point of view characters chapter by chapter. As their morning activities play out across the city, they’re united in alarm by a blaring siren warning of an impending terrorist attack in the city of love.
Mahmoud Khalid, a jihadist, is driven to the Louvre with a bomb strapped to his chest and another in a metal suitcase.
Kate Moore, a deep-cover CIA agent, is running errands and meeting her financier husband Dexter for coffee.
Hunter Forsyth, a fast-living entrepreneur, is in his office and is aiming to reach billionaire status that day with the announcement of a new business venture. He, along with his beautiful assistant, Colette Benoit, who he hopes to bed eventually, are experiencing a tech blackout and the loss of his government assigned security detail who are called to another part of the city to help. The interruptions threaten his work-related plans for the day.
Kate, whose job is so secretive that even her family doesn’t know she’s CIA, departs from Dexter to investigate the attack. As she reaches out to her connections across the city, she discovers that Dexter is as secretive in his work in speculative finance as she in hers, and there is a suspicious link between Hunter and Dexter. As the tensions mount, the attack seems almost secondary to what someone has planned for Hunter. The question becomes who sent the jihadist and why.
Ratcheting up the tensions in this nonstop adventure with the addition of unanticipated twists and more shadowy figures and mercenaries, the storyline masterfully complicates before it resolves, leading to a thrilling ending.
The Paris Diversion is now available.