Gregg Hurwitz is known for thrillers that reliably put new
twists and spins into tried and true themes, making him someone who
crafts a tight suspenseful story. TRUST NO ONE is his latest, and
arguably his best.

The protagonist in this new book is Nick Horrigan, a somewhat
unlikely but solidly believable protagonist who has been living a
relatively quiet and solitary existence in Santa Monica,
California. But all that changes one night (in a fast-paced opening
chapter that races you into the story) when he is awakened from a
sound sleep to discover that his apartment is under siege by a SWAT
team that takes him into custody and speeds him toward a nuclear
reactor facility. It seems a terrorist has taken the facility
hostage and will only speak with Nick. The man Nick finds when he
arrives is using the high-profile siege to get some cryptic
information to him.

Known to Nick only as “Charlie,” the erstwhile
terrorist is actually a former associate of Frank Durant,
Nick’s stepfather. Durant was a highly regarded Secret
Service agent who was mysteriously murdered 17 years earlier. The
circumstances of Durant’s death are such that Nick still
feels responsible, no less because of the mysterious strangers who
sent him on the run for some nine years through the far reaches of
the Pacific Northwest, from Alaska to Oregon.

Charlie is taken off the grid all too soon, but what information
he is able to share with Nick gradually begins to turn his world
upside down. Nick soon finds himself pulled in different directions
between two political camps: one that wants to know what
information he has and the other that does not want the information
revealed. What is ironic, however, is that he doesn’t have
what everyone thinks he has. Outnumbered, outclassed and outreached
at every turn, Nick has only a few clues to work with and even
fewer resources.

What he gradually discovers, by virtue of some dogged digging
and an ex-girlfriend’s computer and networking skills, is
that everything he thought he knew about his stepfather’s
death, and his own culpability in it, could be wrong. As Nick moves
closer to the truth, he finds that he has to make a choice that
will affect not only his own future, but arguably that of the
nation as well, as a long-buried secret comes back to haunt a
statesman on the eve of his greatest triumph, with the capacity to
turn it into his greatest tragedy.

Hurwitz takes major chances in TRUST NO ONE, including one that
is particularly impressive and surprising. Even if you see the
ending coming, there is a twist or two by book’s end that is
entirely unpredictable. For his part, Hurwitz plays fair all the
way, relying less on misdirection than upon careful plotting and
skilled writing to create a work that is at the top of this
year’s must-read list.

A side note for readers here. Hurwitz recently has been writing
for Marvel Comics, crafting new stories for the icons Wolverine and
The Punisher, which is generating new interest in the characters.
Fortunately, for those of us who wait with impatient eagerness for
his books, Hurwitz has been working with equal diligence on his
novels.