Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, has written a review of Noble Lies by Charles Benoit. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.
Noble Lies by Charles Benoit
A Mark Rohr Mystery
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-59058-450-3 (1590584503)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-450-7 (9781590584507)
Publication Date: September 2007
List Price: $24.95
Synopsis (from the publisher): For Mark Rohr, a decorated Desert Storm vet, the last ten years have been filled with shady jobs and countless mis-adventures around the globe. The low point is his current stint as a bouncer at a nameless whorehouse/bar in Thailand. When the beautiful and naive Robin Antonucci arrives in Phuket City from the States and hires him to help find her missing brother Shawn, Mark sees the chance to make some easy money. It is simple: guide her around until she gets bored or until the money runs out and she heads home.
But what should be an easy job in a tropical paradise quickly sours when they meet the stunning Pim who claims to be Shawn's wife. Within hours two men are dead and Jarin, southern Thailand's most notorious gangster, wants Mark to pay. Getting away alone would be difficult. Getting away with Robin and Pim, plus an old man and a small boy - the only members of Pim's family to survive the tsunami - might prove impossible.
With nowhere to hide and ho idea where they are heading, they set off around the Thai coast, racing through beach resorts and remote villages, staying one step ahead of Jarin's men as they search for the truth about Shawn.
Review: If only one word could be used to describe Noble Lies by Charles Benoit, it might be "unpredictable". And for a mystery thriller, that's a very good word indeed.
For former Marine Mark Rohr, working in a bar in Phuket City, Thailand, the job he's hired to do seems simple enough: find Shawn, the brother of an American woman Robin, presumed dead after the tsunami but identified on a recent photograph. But the missing person investigation turns complicated very quickly. They locate Pim who claims to be married to Shawn, but who works for Jarin, a local crime lord who doesn't take kindly to anyone interferring in his affairs. She volunteers to take Mark and Robin to Shawn, but only if they take along her grandfather and young nephew. As their journey continues from Thailand to Malaysia, they discover that though Shawn may be alive and well, he might not want to be found.
"Noble lies" are those told by people who don't know the answer to a question but, in order to save face, give any answer to prevent being perceived as ignorant. Since it isn't clear at any time if anyone is telling the truth in this story, the unpredictability of the plot is one of the great assets of Noble Lies. Benoit provides many detailed descriptions of the region, most of which aren't likely appear on the government tourist brochures for the country, but they add a sense of danger and excitement. When Mark and Robin meet up with modern-day international pirates, which could have been rather ridiculous in any other context, it's just another unexpected, unanticipated, yet thoroughly entertaining bump in the road on their journey to discover the truth about Shawn.
Though there is an occasional chapter from a another character's point of view that tends to unnecessarily muddle the story somewhat, for the most part, Noble Lies is a thrilling adventure worth experiencing.
Special thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for providing an ARC of Noble Lies for this review.
Review Copyright © 2007 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
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