STRIKE ME DOWN

A forensic accountant gets in over her head in Mejia’s (Leave No Trace, 2018, etc.) latest psychological thriller.

Nora Trier is very good at her job. She always gets her man (or woman) and never lets personal ties get in her way. It’s why she took down a powerful CEO who was inflating profits. He was also one of her father’s oldest friends. The case ended tragically and imploded her relationship with her family. However, it’s that fierce independence and nose for justice that got her a job at the Minneapolis firm Parrish Forensics soon after the trial. Now, 15 years and 65 convictions later, Nora and her partners at Parrish have been retained by fitness giant Strike, Inc., owned by champion kickboxer Logan Russo and her husband, Gregg Abbott. In less than a week, they’ll be hosting Strike Down, a massive kickboxing tournament where fighters will be competing for $20 million in prize money, and Logan will choose a new face for the company. The prize money is missing, though, and Gregg tells Nora he thinks Logan is sabotaging the company. Nora and her team must find and recover the money before the tournament ends. It complicates things that Nora herself is a Strike devotee and idolizes the magnetic Logan Russo, who inspires a cultish following. Nora also knows Gregg from a one-night stand several months earlier where full names weren’t exchanged. Nevertheless, Nora starts digging into Strike’s financials as well as Logan and Gregg’s messy and complicated partnership and marriage. It soon becomes terrifyingly clear that this case isn’t just a matter of money—it’s life or death. Mejia’s narrative crackles with obsession, greed, lust, and plenty of ambition, and it’s loaded with more twists and turns than a spy novel. She obviously did her research into the visceral world of competitive kickboxing, and there’s plenty of territory left to mine in the surprisingly interesting (at least the way Mejia writes it) world of forensic accounting. Readers will hope to see more of the unconventional Nora Trier.

A compelling and breathless page-turner.