PATRIOT ACTS
Greg Rucka
Bantam
Thriller
ISBN-10: 0553804731
ISBN-13: 9780553804737

Readers first encountered Atticus Kodiak in CRITICAL SPACE, which released in 2001. Greg Rucka’s character has returned with a vengeance in PATRIOT ACTS, and the most immediate question is if it was worth the wait. The answer is an emphatic “yes!”

Rucka does such a great job bringing new readers (along with those of us with short memories) up to date while moving the story along at Warp Factor 7 that you’ll intuitively grasp what has gone before, even if it isn’t immediately explained. The author doesn’t mess around, however, and in the violent world he has created for Kodiak, it is clear that literally anything can --- and does --- happen. Suffice to say that Kodiak and Alena, Kodiak’s uneasy paramour and sometime teacher, are on the run from an adversary who apparently has unlimited resources and is using them to take the pair permanently off the board. They have no idea who this person is or why they are being pursued, and have little time to wonder why.

Rucka moves things along brilliantly --- from flight, to escape, to ground, to investigation --- as Kodiak and Alena begin to turn things around. They gradually and painstakingly become the pursuers even as they themselves are being tracked down, establishing first the answer to the question of who, and then to the question of why they are being pursued so relentlessly and with terminal intent.

There are many memorable moments in the novel. After reading it, however, I couldn’t help but conclude that there are two everyday acts that I will be unable to perform without thinking of this book for some time to come. The first is pumping gas; the second I won’t give away, but it’s something a great number of us do around the house, particularly in the summer and winter, sometimes without thinking about it. Read it and see.

PATRIOT ACTS is a riveting and an engrossing work, arguably Rucka’s best to date. He wisely leaves a couple of secondary issues dangling that could serve as springboards for a follow-up if he so chooses. Hopefully, fans will not have to wait another six years for Rucka’s next novel.

    --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

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