Review: Choke Point by Ridley Pearson

A Mysterious Review of Choke Point by Ridley Pearson. A Risk Agent Thriller.

Review summary: It's easy to see how this novel could have been an elegantly crafted thriller had a more intellectual approach been taken to solving a case of child labor and prostitution. Instead, it's merely an ordinary, good guys beat up the bad guys style action story that a screenwriter will undoubtedly have no trouble adapting at some point, as it is also the kind of book that gets made into a movie. (Click here for text of full review.)

Our rating:

Choke Point
Ridley Pearson
A Risk Agent Thriller
Putnam (July 2013)

Publisher synopsis: When an award-winning foreign journalist reveals the existence of an Amsterdam-based sweatshop known as a "knot shop" that employs and enslaves young girls as laborers, private security firm Rutherford Risk is hired by a philanthropist to find it and shut it down.

David "Sarge" Dulwich, Knox's former boss from their government contractor days, knows that Knox's cultural knowledge, combat skills, and sympathy for the abused make him right for the job. Joined by Grace Chu, whose more subtle skills for acquiring sensitive tech information help to balance Knox's improvisational style, he heads to Amsterdam in an attempt to dismantle the child labor operation and rescue the girls. In their way is a crime organization that has permeated the neighborhoods with goodwill turning even the victims' parents against their would-be saviors. With enemies around every corner, Knox and Grace can't tell the good from the bad.