Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Most Anticipated Books of 2025!

Summary and Reviews of Relative Danger by Charles Benoit

Relative Danger by Charles Benoit

Relative Danger

by Charles Benoit
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (3):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • First Published:
  • Feb 1, 2004, 340 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Feb 2006, 264 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

'A smashingly good, action-packed first novel....Benoit is a rare discovery, and one hopes that he plans to produce more adventure-oriented mysteries with the same skill and energy that propel this excellent debut' - Publishers Weekly

Picture a hotel room in 1948 Singapore. Picture a dispute between black marketer and thief Russell Pearce and an associate--one who opens fire and murders Russell Pearce.

Fast forward to present-day Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Young Doug Pearce, just fired from his steady job in the brewery, has never strayed far from home. But he's always found stories of his Uncle Russ, the family black sheep, fascinating. In comes a letter from an old friend of his dead uncle inviting him up to Toronto. Doug, at loose ends and bored with killing time, accepts. On arrival, he learns that wealthy and glamorous Edna has an agenda: she has assembled enough clues to solve the murder of Russell Pearce and to recover a legendary red diamond he was thought to be smuggling.

Doug, nervous but game, agrees to play detective. How bad can it be to jet off to a glamour spot or two and have an adventure? Whoa! By the end of his first day in Casablanca, Doug knows he's made a mistake. And while he meets people eager to help--a retired museum curator, a beautiful and self-absorbed heiress, and her elderly father, a colleague of Russell Pearce--it becomes clear that someone else is interested in Doug, someone who is also looking for the diamond.

From Morocco to Egypt to Bahrain to Singapore, Doug stumbles on. And whether he's escaping across Cairo rooftops, ducking bullets in a high-speed desert chase, or killing time in a crowded Egyptian jail cell, Doug is sure of one thing: He has no clue what he's doing. But surely he'll think of something as he's propelled full circle back to Singapore and the famed Raffles Hotel. He's definitely not 007...but will he prove to be a zero?

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

This debut novel is heavy on the fun and light on the suspense. Our young hero, Doug, is a brewery worker from Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Within a few days of each other he finds himself sacked from his dead-end job and on the trail of a fabulous diamond, stolen by his long-dead uncle - the bad sheep of the family - who was murdered many years earlier. Seeing everything from Doug's wonderfully small town viewpoint we're taken on a whistle-stop tour from Toronto to Singapore, by way of Casablanca, Cairo and Bahrain. Along the way Doug battles off copious quantities of thugs, thieves, crooked policemen and beautiful women in a tale that is always amusing and sometimes reaches laugh out loud levels...continued

Full Review (68 words)

This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access, become a member today.

(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



A compulsive traveler, occasional scuba diver, and incurable beginning saxophonist, Charles Benoit has worked in education and advertising.  He and his wife, Rose, currently live in exotic Rochester, New York.  Relative Danger is his first novel.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Relative Danger, try these:

  • To The Nines jacket

    To The Nines

    by Janet Evanovich

    Published 2004

    About this book

    More by this author

    Stephanie Plum may not be the best bounty hunter in beautiful downtown Trenton, but what she uncovers is far more sinister than anyone imagines and leads to a group of killers who give new meaning to the word hunter.

  • The Vendetta Defense jacket

    The Vendetta Defense

    by Lisa Scottoline

    Published 2002

    About this book

    More by this author

    In a case steeped in blood and memory, it will take a stroke of brilliance to save Pigeon Tony. But if anyone just might see justice done, it's this gutsy young attorney who'll risk everything to win ... including her life.

Read-Alikes are one of the many benefits of membership. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Charles Benoit
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    Babylonia
    by Costanza Casati
    From the author of the bestselling Clytemnestra comes another intoxicating excursion into ancient history. When kings fall, queens rise.
Book Club Giveaway!
Win Help Wanted

Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman

From the best-selling author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. comes a funny, eye-opening tale of work in contemporary America.

Enter

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Going Home
    by Tom Lamont

    Going Home is a sparkling, funny, bighearted story of family and what happens when three men take charge of a toddler following an unexpected loss.

  • Book Jacket

    The Secret History of the Rape Kit
    by Pagan Kennedy

    The story of the woman who kicked off a feminist revolution in forensics, and then vanished into obscurity.

  • Book Jacket

    Beast of the North Woods
    by Annelise Ryan

    When a local fisherman is mauled to death, it seems like the only possible cause is a mythical creature.

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

T the L

and be entered to win..