THE PERFECT PLAN

Abused from childhood by his monstrous father, Liam Brennan becomes involved in a complicated abduction scheme devised by his manipulative older brother, Drew, a candidate for Delaware governor.

Drew, who married into a rich political family, has concocted a plan to have Lauren, his campaign manager (and mistress), kidnapped by Liam, who has overcompensated for feelings of weakness by acting as his brother's muscle. At times, that has involved violence. In this case, Drew hopes to draw sympathy votes by standing by his screwed-up sibling after Lauren is dramatically "rescued" from the cabin where Liam stashed her. Little goes as planned, for the characters or the reader. Liam begins scheming to escape his personal history, which is also darkened by the sordid mistreatment and death of his alcoholic mother, and Reardon begins toying with the underpinnings of the plot. The author likely would have fared better with one less stab of misdirection and a father with more than one dimension. And though this is not a political thriller, the election shenanigans are badly undercooked. But the novel is never less than gripping in its detailing of the sadistic treatment received by Liam and his dear, beautiful mother and the ruinous imprint it left on them. Drew is hardly in the clear, psychologically. "We're in this together, brother," he says, oblivious to the full truth of that statement. The nightmare keeps deepening right up to the end.

Reardon's follow-up to The Real Michael Swann (2018) is another tense and entertaining thriller that keeps its hold on the reader even while indulging in excessive trickery.