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Afterburn
 
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Afterburn (Paperback)

by Colin Harrison (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
RRP: £6.99
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Frequently Bought Together

Afterburn + The Havana Room + Break and Enter
Total RRP: £19.97
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  • This item: Afterburn by Colin Harrison

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  • The Havana Room by Colin Harrison

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  • Break and Enter by Colin Harrison

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Product details

  • Paperback: 448 pages
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; New edition edition (22 Jan 2001)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0747548285
  • ISBN-13: 978-0747548287
  • Product Dimensions: 17 x 11 x 3.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 898,940 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Harrison's fourth thriller follows on from the acclaim bestowed on Break and Enter, Bodies Electric and Manhattan Nocturne, and continues the vein of modern noir established in those books: a tough man vulnerable only to the charms of a tougher femme fatale, a world where the sex is lubricious, the violence shocking and visceral, and the lure of power and money ubiquitous.

Afterburn follows the fatal intertwining of three lives: Charlie Ravich, a Vietnam vet turned multimillionaire businessman, who is seeking a woman to bear the male heir; Christina Welles, fresh out of prison and relying on her high intelligence to evade the mob who have engineered her release; and Rick Bocca, Christina's ex-lover, who walked away while she was imprisoned and now is trying to save her. Each of them, true to the genre, has a past that hangs over them with an almost fatalistic aura of incipient tragedy.

Harrison has constructed a brutally efficient and vivid thriller, but what stands out most are the passages where detailed research dovetails with the author's noir- ish imagination: the account of Charlie's capture and torture in Vietnam, the machinations of high-level business negotiations, the sickeningly inventive interrogation techniques of a medically inclined mobster.

The book's epigraph quotes Jean-Paul Sartre on the psychology of torture: equally pertinent would have been Sartre's observation that we are defined ultimately by our actions. The three main characters in Afterburn are all faced with their own "moment of truth"--or Sartre's famous quote that "Hell is other people". In the corrupt inferno of Harrison's New York, that would be all too apt. --Burhan Tufail --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Review

'A relentless plot, a fascinating set of characters under pressure, and high-octane drama. An impeccably literate thriller' GUARDIAN 'A brilliantly imagined book; immaculately organised; fully fleshed; dark as night' LITERARY REVIEW
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Customer Reviews

7 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
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3 star:    (0)
2 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Its hot stuff, 28 Aug 2004
I read this book almost two years ago and have got many of my friends to read it since, just like me they love it. I also discovered that track 8 from the Stereophonics cd 'Just Enough Education to Perform' fits perfectly with this book and if i told you i still remeber the characters and the plot vividly and haven't read a better book since. The characters are engaging, violent, very intense and also you find that you soon want all three to come through this ordeal unscathed but fear they may not. The plot after a somewhat slow start increases its pace and when the characters start to come together through a series of conincidences the book really does become compelling. The three main players are Rick who is a tough and sometimes nasty bloke who has been drifting/ chilling/lying low for a while. When he gets wind that Christine is on the outside again and tracks her down the spark ignites once more. Charlie, a 50 something businessman is haunted by NAM, has severe back pains and becomes spellbound by Christine. And of course Christine, she is in demand all of a sudden, she is streetwise and doesnt play by the rules. She also has a secret. When the three of them finally cross paths and the secret gets out their world turns upside down. D-day arrives like a hurricane and none of them can actually believe what is happening or indeed how serious there situation is.

Why is the past catching them up? How has Charlie got involved in something so deadly and can he buy his way out of it? Is Rick really such a tough guy anymore and what is really in that refridgerated box he is dragging along? and who will Christine turn too when the chips are down?

Colin Harrison has entered a new dimension above some of our more commercial freinds.

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars SOMETIMES YOU CAN JUDGE A BOOK BY IT'S COVER, 20 Aug 2003
By ROC (Eire) - See all my reviews
I'm going to start this review with a confession- I picked up this book because of it's flashy colour. However this was simply the lure that was needed to get me hooked. Afterburn is a great story with interesting characters. Harrison's style is perhaps best described by saying that this is how I'd imagine John Grisham and Irvine Welsh would write a book if they pooled their ideas. By this I mean the little Grishamesque details are all there, from the workings of a jet fighter plane to the function of intricate mob rackets, along with the graphic imagery that defines Welsh's works such as detailed accounts of both torture and sex.

The story itself involves 3 main characters whose lives all become intertwined: A Vietnam veteran businessman, a fresh out of prison genius and her ex-boyfriend who she went to prison for. The story also touches on the Vietnamese war, the world of high finance, the mafia, exile and life behind bars. Without giving too much away there are some very original and memorable scenarios.

The only reason that I'm not giving this full marks is that it does tend to drag in some parts as some of the sub plots are not as exciting as others but all in all definately worth having.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Almost too cruel, 23 Aug 2002
Charlie Ravich, the nominal hero of Afterburn, is a very unlucky man. He starts the book being captured and tortured by the VietCong and ends it, well, probably wishing he was back with them. And in between he is tormented by the multiple misfortunes of his family.

Charlie's attempts to help himself, and to help his family, bring him into bad company; a brilliant young woman who served time she didn't have to, the guilty boyfriend she protected, the boyfriend's passive, manipulated brother, a vicious gangster, and his incomparably more vicious enforcer are brought together in a dark tangle of cross-purposes and misunderstandings. This is not a happy story, and the story in itself is not terribly original.
But it is a brilliantly told, the humanity of Harrison's characters and the surprising grace and strength of his prose far exceeding what you might expect to find in what is packaged as an airport thriller.
The opening sequence, set in Vietnam, is like a capsule-novel in itself, dense and satisfying dark meat. The story that follows starts out in several strands that come together with bursts of stark violence punctuated by melancholic interludes, all peppered with deliberate ( and poignant) reference to what happens in that first chapter.
The action, and the violence, edges into the melodramatic (even surreal sometimes, with echoes of Monty Python and the Holy Grail), which is the only thing stopping me from giving this five stars. But, really, you won't find a better book in a less-promising cover than this.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars One to be recommended
Anytime somebody asks me about recent novels that have made an impression - and sadly so few really do - I mention Afterburn. Read more
Published on 20 Sep 2007 by donald darkness

2.0 out of 5 stars Lurid cover, no content
The gold cover of this novel hides a discontinous, unrealistic tale.

It opens well with a description of one of the main characters sufferings in Vietnam and the telecoms... Read more

Published on 28 Aug 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars Explosive story telling from beginning to end.
This is Colin Harrison's fourth novel and fans will not be disappointed. If you are a newcomer, then get ready for brilliantly sketched characters and tight narrative in a story... Read more
Published on 13 Mar 2001

4.0 out of 5 stars Full of pace, but....
This book had me on-side from page one - it is clearly well-written and has great ingredients for a plot, albeit that certain elements are a bit too unrealistic. Read more
Published on 24 Jun 2000

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