Author: Michael Connelly
Title: Chasing The Dime
Genre: Thriller
ISBN: 0-75284-980-8
‘Henry Pierce has just moved in to a new apartment but the first time he checks his phone messages he discovers that someone had the number before him. The messages are for a woman named Lilly – and she is in some kind of serious trouble.’

This was another of those books I picked up a while ago for £1 each. The Grave Tattoo was another of those, but this was something special.

For some reason, the idea of being so suddenly and firmly linked to a stranger is oddly gripping. Some woman you have never met before and you immediately swept up and gathered into her life by a slew of phone calls. Well… you’ve seen Phone Booth right? Wait, what do you mean no! Hurry up and watch it if you haven’t, at the very least to enjoy Colin Farrell getting progressively dirtier, sweatier and sexier as he speaks on the phone.

Anyway…

Henry Pierce is just a normal guy who gets pulled into something far bigger and far nastier than he might ever have imagined. From the first irritating phone call he takes right up to the final, face off, he is forced to make decisions utterly alien to his comfortable, well organised life. Very soon he is racing to save not only the life of a complete stranger, but his own too.

Connelly has written a book with a classy mix of mystery, suspense and danger with a good strong pace that never quite slows. Just when you think there might be something of a breather, there’s a new twist, be it large or small, that made me cry ‘Damnit Pierce; you’re screwed now!’