#ReadThis @RandomHouse #THEPARISDIVERSION by #ChrisPavone @AuthorChrisPavone
In the history of Whom You Know, there has never been a time when all of you have had more time to read. Peachy Deegan is reading many of her favorite classics again including Fitzgerald, Dickens and Twain. Another book she recently considered was from the genius of Random House and Chris Pavone: The Paris Diversion.
Doesn't everyone want to virtually go to Paris when you practically can't escape Manhattan?!
Time to enter an ex-pat life with Kate by Chris and bask in the commendable cadence of an entertaining story! You'll even see some of it is set in Le Marais and in the land of Peachy Deegan you already know there is ONLY ONE LE MARAIS to us and it's by Jose in Times Square.
Paris is obviously a great setting (and if you haven't seen Audrey Fleurot and company in Spiral you should) so that caught our attention, and we do love a good spy thriller. Though no one beats John Le Carre in this realm or even comes close, Pavone does quite well. If you are a parent you will probably like this better than if you aren't because the mommy role is played up quite a bit-the protagonist is one. We love that Kate is from Connecticut, home of some of the best and the best Kates too! (Hepburn!)
It's quite timely-for certain a coincidence they talk about sheltering in place on p. 56.
Pavone comes up with some smashing verbiage: "copulatory consequence" (p.42). Characters are well-thought out and you are going to love to hate Hashtag Mom (vomit). Sip some wine every time she comes up to tolerate her at all!' Dexter is also a nightmare: don't marry a Dexter. He will make you glad to be single if you are!
If you are also a Le Carre advocate you will find Pavone decidedly middle American in his word choice. It is straightforward and direct but does have Le Carre plotlines. Pavone excels in his juxtaposition of characters and his skipping back and forth on the timeline does mirror Le Carre quite a bit.
We will say if you are a finance professional you are likely to concur that Pavone is no Michael Lewis (remember the legendary Human Piranha!!!) when explaining the short.
We also really liked the font and the photographs at the commencement of each chapter, and the many fleur-de-lys!
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With the publication of his first novel The Expats (2012), Chris Pavone established himself as a major new voice in the thriller world, and his two following novels continued to earn him accolades from such authors as John Grisham, Stephen King, Lee Child, Patricia Cornwell, Michael Connelly, and Paula McLain to name a few. Foreign rights to The Expats, The Accident (2014), and The Travelers (2016) have sold in two dozen territories combined, and Pavone has film deals secured with CBS Films (The Expats) and DreamWorks (The Travelers). His thrillers have been short-listed for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, awarded the Anthony and the Edgar, and have received glowing reviews in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, People, Entertainment Weekly, Washington Post, USA Today, and more.
Now with THE PARIS DIVERSION (Ballantine Books, February 4, 2020) newly in paperback, Pavone returns to Kate and Dexter Moore from The Expats in an explosive thriller set in the City of Light.
American expat Kate Moore—a busy working parent with a faltering career, middle-aged and on the cusp of irrelevance—starts a leisurely day in chic Saint-Germain-des-Près, while just across the river a suicide bomber arrives at the Louvre, and simultaneous threats arise all across the city. As the action-packed plot unfolds over the course of one momentous day, Kate discovers that this attack is not at all what it appears . . . and that it involves her family.
This tense, gripping page-turner was inspired by Pavone’s own experiences of 9/11 in downtown New York City—he and his wife lived just blocks from Ground Zero—and the long-term aftermath of a global capital besieged by terror. The novel didn’t take shape until fifteen years later, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the November attacks, when Pavone spent a week in a Paris that felt a lot like New York in 2001. He immediately began writing THE PARIS DIVERSION in Left Bank cafés, scribbling notes on street corners, and spent a memorable evening at the famed bookshop Shakespeare & Co., where the final pieces fell into place.
Those pieces included the paradigm-shattering twists that are the hallmark of Pavone’s deftly constructed plots, and a terrorist event that’s not perpetrated by the expected villains, nor thwarted by the expected heroes, nor featuring the expected anything. In the words of Jeffery Deaver, this is “Thriller writing at its absolute best. With echoes of Graham Greene and John le Carré, Pavone’s novel accomplishes that rare feat of being both a nonstop adventure ride and a smart, stylish, and compelling meditation on family, courage, responsibilities, and the relationships we create, for good and bad, throughout our lives.”
About the Author:
Chris Pavone is the New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Diversion, The Expats, The Accident, and The Travelers. He is the winner of the Edgar and Anthony awards for best first novel. He was a book editor for nearly two decades and lives in New York City with his family.
THE PARIS DIVERSION: A Novel
by Chris Pavone
Ballantine Books • On Sale: February 4, 2020 • Pages: 400
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6151-6 Also available as an ebook, a large print edition, and on audio
Visit randomhousebooks.com
Visit Chris at chrispavone.com or @AuthorChrisPavone on Facebook
