The Dispatcher [Paperback]

'To call Ryan David Jahn's new novel a fast-paced thriller is a bit like saying David Haye can box a little, or that Alex Ferguson is good at man management... If you only read one book tomorrow, make it this one.' --Dylan Jones, editor of GQ

'There are books that slyly creep up on you, books that seduce you, books that wheedle their way into you and books that play on your mind so much they deliver stark realisations when you're not even reading them. When you're driving to work, for example, and the nuance of something a character says suddenly alters everything you think about them, causing you to cut up the unsuspecting Nissan Altima on your right. And then there are those books that almost force you to put your feet in the starting blocks, place your fingers on the polyurethane, cock your head and wait for the gun. `The Dispatcher' is one of those books. To call Ryan David Jahn's new novel a fast-paced thriller is a bit like saying David Haye can box a little, or that Alex Ferguson is good at man management . . . This is the first book I've read in two years that has caused me to sit up until the early hours to finish it . . . I guarantee that if you pick this up, then everything else in your life will immediately be pushed to the margins, and when you've finished you'll resurface as if from an especially corny dream sequence - dazed, confused and with a thin layer of cold sweat on the back of your neck. I read `The Dispatcher' in six hours straight, from gun to tape. Which made me think of a twist on the traditional potboiler ad. If you only read one book tomorrow, make it this one.' --Dylan Jones, editor of GQ

`It is safe to assume that US crime thriller writer Ryan David Jahn will not become an ambassador for his country any time soon ... This being a Jahn novel, it's the set-up for a cross-state chase that feels like it should be unspooling in the grainy grind house footage of a 1960s fleapit cinema. The breathless pace virtually demands a single-setting read . . . Over the past few years a new generation of crime writers has come perilously close to recreating the jaded mindset of the classic noir thrillers, but no one has succeeded quite like Jahn . . . The author leads the new noir pack with a series of palm-sweating situations that pay homage to the classics of the genre while feeling entirely fresh - in a mean, lean, unclean way.' --Financial Times

`At times violent, the action of the book reflects the anguish and desperations o kidnappers, rescuers and Maggie's loved ones, and is played out against the vast, empty deserts of Texas and California, ending in a tense, thrilling showdown. Jahn has written a real page-turner, well crafted with convincing characters and an involving plot based on how far people will go for their family.' --We Love This Book

`Ryan David Jahn made some waves with his debut Acts of Violence, and new book the Dispatcher has smalltown cop Ian Hunt taking a routine call only to hear the voice of his teenage daughter, who was snatched from her bed seven years earlier. A blood and bullet-strewn chase from Texas to California ensues'
--The List

`Jahn is the fastest rising star in the ever-competitive crime fiction world and The Dispatcher is his third novel. It exhibits all the strengths of the previous two, and then some. He is more a poet than a disciple of the hard-boiled, giving us one brutally swift, ultra-smart line after another. The characters live and breathe in all their wickedness, helplessness or determination. And then there are the plots...talk about page-turning.'
--Book of the Week, Daily Mirror

`Reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's tales of vengeance, The Dispatcher is an impressively accomplished performance that never strains for mythic power but nevertheless acquires it.' --Sunday Times

`The Dispatcher, which reads at a cracking pace, is a one-sitting, fist-in-mouth read.' --Guardian

`Any novel that takes its epigraphs from Beckett and Nietzsche is hardly going to be a barrel of laughs. Sure enough, Ryan David Jahn The Dispatcher is devoid of humour but full of violence . . . Cue a breathless, bloody chase all the way to California in which the second meaning of the title - the killer - comes to the fore.' --Sunday Telegraph

"The phone rings. It's your daughter. She's been dead for four months." From that compulsive hook Jahn delivers a nerve-shredding thriller with plenty of energy and a tight plot'
--Big Issue

'Where the plot requires some suspension of disbelief with one convenient act of discovery and where our understanding of what made Henry and Beatrice as they are unexplored to a satisfying degree, Jahn's The Dispatcher is near pitch perfect. This is human life as we dare not imagine it can be, packaged in an adrenaline-pumped storyline and one that will leave you with your lower jaw resting on your chest. I don't believe anyone else is offering Jahn's insight and style of writing today, so if you can stomach it, do try him out and make sure you allocate sufficient hours to read in one sitting. This continues to be outstanding work from Jahn.'
--Itsacrimeuk blog

`Jahn creates a series of palm-sweating situations that pay homage to the classic noirs while feeling entirely fresh.'
--Financial Times Life & Arts Books of the Year

The phone rings. It’s your daughter. She’s been dead for four months.