The Chase

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There is more than one driving force, but the Osbourne/Kradle is the most intriguing. Highly entertaining! I was glued to the audiobook and did not want to put it down. Harriet Blue, the most single-minded detective since Lindsay Boxer, won't rest until she stops a savage killer targeting female university students. But new clues point to a more chilling predator...a violent criminal far worse than she expected. Hmmmm, so what’s the disadvantage to beginning your book with 600+ people escaping prison I ask myself? Well, I answer myself, where to from there? The plot is ridiculous, but, if you can suspend (your) disbelief, it's a really enjoyable book. Fox is able to masterfully transform the story from a plot-driven novel to more of a character-driven novel. There’s a plane heist, (more than) several shoot-outs, a plethora of serial murderers, rapists, a paedophile, a would-be terrorist, and a neo-Nazi responsible for a mass shooting! And they are all running around in a murderous frenzy, causing havoc and chaos everywhere! The storyline is busy and the character portrayals are many but you won’t have any problem keeping up with the huge cast as they are each as memorable as the other. The story unfurls at a fast pace and offers plenty of action. Fox taps into some critical issues we experience today in our prison system: budgets, overcrowded, understaffed, and innocent prisoners behind bars and on death row. The Chase is consistently entertaining with an even mix of desperation, determination and logical reasoning scattered between the escapees and the pursuing US Marshalls. There is also a healthy dose of humour sprinkled within to keep it entertaining.

CW: brutal murders, references to heinous crimes committed by criminals such as rape, terrorism, murder of family among others. It was a day for families and sports. The families of those imprisoned are held on a bus unless the prisoners are let loose. Daringly audacious, gritty and fast paced, and at times very amusing....with many seriously laugh out loud moments. First and foremost, a large thank you to NetGalley, Candice Fox, and Macmillan Audio for providing me with a copy of this publication, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review. With all that being said, this is by no means a bad book as I quite enjoyed The Chase. Fox’s writing is competent and has the efficiency of someone who knows her craft (among the eleven books to her name are titles co-authored with James Patterson). The setting is well drawn, and the characters are engaging. Despite the fact that the various perspectives felt a bit redundant, I was also engaged by the mysteries and read on with the keenness of someone who really wants to know the answer. While it seems somewhat grisly to say that I love to read thrillers while I’m on holiday, this would be a perfect book to take away with me and read while lying in the sun (with a generous covering of SPF50, of course).In conclusion, if you loved the first season of Prison Break, but thought the second series was kind of a let-down (OK, so they're out—now what?) then The Chase is absolutely the book for you. Her debut novel, Hades, won the Ned Kelly Award for best debut in 2014 from the Australian Crime Writers Association, while Eden, her second book, clinched the Ned Kelly Award for best crime novel in 2015. As such, Candiceis one of only two authors to have won these awards on the trot. After former detective Ted Conkaffey was wrongly accused of abducting thirteen-year-old Claire Bingley, he hoped the Queensland rainforest town of Crimson Lake would be a good place to disappear. But nowhere is safe from Claire’s devastated father. Meanwhile, in a dark roadside hovel called the Barking Frog Inn, the bodies of two young bartenders lie on the beer-sodden floor. Grace staggered down from the couch and gripped the edge of the desk. Her training was forgotten, her senses blurred. She went to her chair and fell into it, relieved by the familiar feeling of her own warmth on the seat, something comforting in the chilling seconds that passed. She also has very personal reasons for wanting to single handedly chase down and capture John Kradle....for her, it has become a vendetta.

I’m betting inmates,” Tyler decided, giving his mother a wry smile. “Dad says they’ve been practicing during yard time for months.” There’s a bus stopped in the desert half a mile from the prison walls,” the voice said. It was a male voice. Soft, clipped. Confident. “If you go to the window behind you and look out, you’ll see it sitting on the road.” When 600 of the world’s most violent criminals are released from Pronghorn Correctional Facility, due to a hostage situation, no one is safe. For personal reasons, Death Row Supervisor Celine Osbourne is determined to catch family annihilator, John Kradle, putting his crime of murdering three family members above the crimes of convicts that murdered many more people. This puts her at odds with US Marshal Trinity Parker, who is in charge of the round up of these criminals and who has a much more clear headed plan of action. Sadly, both women are presented as if they are cat fighting young teens, childishly sniping at each other until Trinity punches Celine in the gut to show her who's boss. When more than 600 of the world’s most violent human beings pour out from Pronghorn Correctional Facility into the Nevada Desert, the biggest manhunt in US history begins. Bankstown born and bred, she failed to conform to military life in a brief stint as an officer in the Royal Australian Navy at age eighteen. At twenty, she turned her hand to academia, and taught high school through two undergraduate and two postgraduate degrees. Candice lectures in writing at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney, while undertaking a PhD in literary censorship and terrorism.Grace tried to remember the location of the panic button on her desk, the one that would send an alarm to her colleagues inside the building, and an automatic “assistance needed” call to the nearest law enforcement agencies. All she had to do was remember where that single button was. But her mind was spinning, reeling, and for a long moment it was a struggle just to breathe.

That’s what makes it scary when someone like Burke is set loose. Who are his people? What are they planning?It’s a strange comment to make, but there’s something oddly soothing about a thriller. Even the most gruesome, gory ones have a resolution at their end. I think it’s why we enjoy reading them; we know that no matter how horrific the crime or how puzzling the mystery, we will get some kind of answer. Only a really good seasoned writer could take on a story revolving around the escape and pursuit, from a prison breakout, of some of the worst kind of prisoners ever to be incarcerated....

He just needs to stay one step ahead of the teams of law enforcement officers he knows will be chasing down the escapees. Best True Crime Book Charged with the task of rounding up this mass of human refuse is Trinity Parker, a US Marshall. She is well versed in cleaning up these types of messes and offers a sharp tongue ahead of a rapier wit. Right from the off you get the sense that she is going to be a character who’ll steal every scene. Detective Harriet Blue is chasing down a violent killer on a university campus in a terrifying case that's far more sinister than she ever imagined.

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Feeding into this issue is the mystery of who engineered the mass release of the prisoners amid a neo-Nazi storyline. While I’m all for a story which vilifies Nazis of any kind (and really, who isn’t?), the two narratives (Kradle and the Nazis) felt at times as though they could have belonged to separate books altogether. Moreover, it felt as though the ‘whodunit’ of the mass outbreak at times competed with the ‘whodunit’ of the murder of Kradle’s family. Nobody loves you? We’ll be your new best friends. It’s no longer just religious extremists promoting a glorious afterlife for suicide bombers. These people promote themselves as some kind of rebel army, and your enemies are their enemies. Of course this is done subtly, quietly, moving from mainstream social media to smaller chat rooms and later ‘off-grid’ where you and I don’t see them at work.