Name: City of Windows
Rating: 5.0 (1 reviews)
Author: Robert Pobi

About this book

Summary

Book Summary

In the tradition of Jeffery Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme and David Baldacci's Amos Decker, Robert Pobi's City of Windows introduces Lucas Page, a brilliant, reluctant investigator, matching wits with a skilled, invisible killer.

During the worst blizzard in memory, an FBI agent in a moving SUV in New York City is killed by a nearly impossible sniper shot. Unable to pinpoint where the shot came from, as the storm rapidly wipes out evidence, the agent-in-charge Brett Kehoe turns to the one man who might be able to help them―former FBI agent Lucas Page.

Page, a university professor and bestselling author, left the FBI years ago after a tragic event robbed him of a leg, an arm, an eye, and the willingness to continue. But he has an amazing ability to read a crime scene, figure out angles and trajectories in his head, and he might be the only one to be able to find the sniper's nest. With a new wife and family, Lucas Page has no interest in helping the FBI―except for the fact that the victim was his former partner.

Agreeing to help for his partner's sake, Page finds himself hunting a killer with an unknown agenda and amazing sniper skills in the worst of conditions. And his partner's murder is only the first in a series of meticulously planned murders carried out with all-but-impossible sniper shots. The only thing connecting the deaths is that the victims are all with law enforcement―that is until Page's own family becomes a target.

To identify and hunt down this ruthless, seemingly unstoppable killer, Page must discover what hidden past connects the victims before he himself loses all that is dear to him.

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Media Reviews

"The tense plot is balanced by the prickly Lucas's cerebral investigating skills. This promises to be Pobi's breakout thriller." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Relentless pacing, tight plotting, and a brainy, idiosyncratic new hero make this one a winner." - Kirkus Reviews

"Pobi's rocket-fueled plot and strong voice make this a can't-miss hit." - Library Journal

"A tough, wise, knowing narrative voice, a great plot, a great setting, and even better characters ― I loved this." - Lee Child, New York Times bestselling author

"A stunner. One of the most impressive, compelling thrillers I've read in a long while. The plot moves at bullet velocity. The writing has an electric surge. Robert Pobi delivers a fresh, exciting new voice to thriller fiction." - David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of Murder As a Fine Art and First Blood: Rambo

"City of Windows is that rarest of gems―a page-turner painted with soaring prose that makes you want to read every sentence twice. In Dr. Lucas Page, Robert Pobi has created a unique and modern protagonist, as irascible as he is brilliant. He'll be back and so will I." - Gregg Hurwitz, New York Times bestselling author of Orphan X

"I don't have space to list the many things that are done expertly in City of Windows. Just read it and start watching for Robert Pobi's next book." - Thomas Perry, Edgar award-winning and New York Times bestselling author

This information about City of Windows was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own review

Cloggie Downunder

First-rate crime fiction.
City of Windows is the first book in the Lucas Page series by Canadian author, Robert Pobi. When an FBI agent is shot in his car on a Manhattan street during a snow-storm, Brett Kehoe, Special Agent in Charge of Manhattan, insists on analysis of the scene by Dr Lucas Page. But it’s been ten years since Lucas was part of the Bureau, and he’s wary. The victim’s identity draws him in; he works his magic and pinpoints the location of the shooter. And then Lucas hopes to walk away.

Within hours, another victim, another impossible shot, and Lucas again picks the spot from which the sniper took the shot. But while one of Bureau agents attributes it to random shootings, Lucas can’t dismiss it so easily: he is soon proven right when the victim turns out to be ex-FBI. By the time a third person is shot, under similar impossible circumstances, it is clear that someone is targeting law enforcement officers. But why?

Lucas Page is an interesting protagonist: an astrophysicist and college lecturer who is endowed with acute spatial awareness, making him a whizz at projectile geometry. The Event that ended his career with the Bureau, and his marriage, has left him with several bionic bits and, eventually, a new wife and a tribe of adopted kids. He’s devoid of tact, and shows no compunction about using his grad students to do some Bureau grunt work.

For this case, Kehoe teams him up with Whitaker, a female African-American, intelligent, formidable and with a delightful knack for anticipating questions. Their dialogue is very entertaining, and serves to provide some of Lucas’s backstory (the rest from flashbacks) as well as his strongly-held opinions and his intolerance of stupidity. The heroic Aussie double amputee also charms the reader.

His rant on terrorists is excellent: “Numbers don’t lie. And although everyone is allowed to have a position, not all positions are created equal. There are experts in any given field; one person’s ignorance is not just as valuable as another’s knowledge, and the fact is your average American has to worry about his neighbor more than terrorists by orders of magnitude.” And re gun sales “They weren’t buying protection – they were being sold fear.”

Pobi’s plot is clever, with lots of excellent deductive work, twists, red herrings, plenty of tension and a heart-stopping climax. More of this cast of characters is available to the reader in the second instalment, Under Pressure. First-rate crime fiction.

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Author Information

Biography

Robert Pobi

Robert Pobi is the author of five previous novels, including the international bestseller Bloodman and Harvest, though City of Windows is his first thriller. He lives in Canada.

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