Daniel Palmer, Desperate

I think I've found a new author to watch. Daniel Palmer's Desperate is a very gripping read. Gage Dekker's life takes a dramatic turn when he and his wife meet a distraught woman at a bus stop. The tension builds deliciously in the first part of the story, when Gage has misgivings about how things are playing out but no way to prove that his concerns are based on anything realistic. The book then pivots into more of an action story—equally good but less cerebral. There's a complex scheme or two and a twist that I, at least, didn't see coming, and it was hard to put this one down. My only complaint was some hokey dialogue, particularly in the first part of the book, that struck me as unrealistic, but it certainly wasn't a deal breaker.