Thursday, January 11, 2007

Slay Ride by Chris Grabenstein

Advertising executive Scott Wilkinson has a very nice life: a lovely home in suburban New Jersey, a beautiful wife, and a little girl on the way. But his charmed existence becomes cursed when he steps into a Lucky Seven airport limousine driven by an embittered one-time agent of the KGB. Nicolai Kyznetsoff is already enraged at the world when Wilkinson dares to admonish him for being a few minutes late. After surviving a white-knuckle ride to LaGuardia, Wilkinson calls Lucky Seven to file a complaint.

A year goes by and while Wilkinson's life seems perfect little does he know that Grandfather Frost is waiting for the right moment to attack and is soon kidnapped. His worried, very pregnant wife refuses to sit around and wait.

Meanwhile, across town, off-duty FBI agent Christopher Miller (aka Saint Christopher) finds the "Man in the Moon," a serial killer who has been taking out cab drivers with every full moon on the Jersey shore. He is placed on probation for outshining his jealous boss who we find out later has been using Miller's name with the Russian mafia. He is called in to calm down an old Russian woman who has been robbed and uncovers details of Russian diamond smugglers who transport the booty in nesting matryoshka dolls.

But Nicolai isn't just out for revenge on Wilkinson but Miller as well. He believes Miller has stolen his diamonds. So after many gruesome killings and biting your nails chases will he find Wilkinson in time before he is killed off or before Nicolai kills Miller?

This was a wild fast read but rather gruesome killings of lots of people with very graphic detail. Thankfully I can skim over that part. The ending was bit pat for me but overall a good read. I'll try one of his other works to see what it is like.