Title: 48 Hours to Kill by Andrew Bourelle
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Genre: Contemporary, Crime Thriller
Length: 352 pages
Book Rating: B+
Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley
Summary:
A prison inmate on furlough learns a terrible secret about his sister’s mysterious death—and descends back into the criminal underworld to uncover the truth, in this action-packed thrill ride James Patterson calls “the best thriller I’ve read all year.”
Serving a ten-year sentence in a Nevada prison for armed robbery, Ethan Lockhart hopes that he can one day become a productive, law-abiding member of society. But society has other plans for Ethan. When he’s given a forty-eight-hour furlough to attend his sister Abby’s funeral, he learns that her body was never found—just enough blood to declare her dead instead of missing—and he begins to suspect that there’s more to her death than was reported. Ethan decides to use his forty-eight-hour window to find out what happened. But to get to the bottom of the mystery, he’ll have to return to his unsavory past.
Ethan teams up with his sister’s best friend Whitney in a search for the truth. United in their shared grief, their chemistry—both emotional and physical—also begins to heat up. But romance goes on hold as the suspects mount. Ethan’s old boss, Shark, a mid-level loan shark now heads a criminal empire. As Ethan and Whitney uncover more clues, they become convinced that Shark is responsible for the murder, but they have no proof.
If Ethan is going to solve his sister’s murder in forty-eight hours, he will have to become the criminal he swore he’d never be again.
Review:
48 Hours to Kill by Andrew Bourelle is a high-octane crime thriller.
Convict Ethan Lockhart is surprised he has been granted 48 hours of unsupervised furlough to attend his younger sister Abby’s funeral. He has a list of conditions that he blithely assures his caseworker Daryl Maxwell that he won’t break. But once Ethan decides to try to find out who murdered Abby, he will do whatever it takes to find her and her killer.
Ethan is serving time for crime he committed while working for Stanley “Shark” D’Antonio. He refused to turn on Shark and in return, his former boss agreed to take care of Abby financially. To his dismay, Abby and her best friend, Whitney Potter, give up college to work in Shark’s strip club. Ethan is convinced Shark is responsible for his sister’s death, but Shark denies any involvement. Ethan gets in touch with Calvin Taylor, the detective who worked Abby’s murder before her case was turned over to the FBI. But Special Agent Brian Hughes is nowhere close to making an arrest.
Ethan crosses paths with Whitney who helps him as he tries to figure out who murdered Abby. He uncovers troubling information at his sister’s apartment but he is uncertain if what he learns has anything to do with her murder. But, overcome with guilt for putting his sister into harm’s way, Ethan continues to believe Shark knows more than he is saying. Neither his former boss nor his muscle is no match for Ethan as he tries to find Abby’s killer.
48 Hours to Kill is a crime thriller that moves at a blistering pace. Ethan has plenty of regrets but he accepts responsibility for his choices. His determination to find out what happened to Abby is a little foolhardy yet admirable. The storyline is well-executed and the short chapters keep the tension at a fever pitch as Ethan’s 48 hours steadily counts down. With a truly shocking plot twist, Andrew Bourelle brings this pulse-pounding crime thriller to an violent, unpredictable conclusion.
