Abrahams, Peter 1947-

views updated

Abrahams, Peter 1947-

PERSONAL: Born 1947; married Diana Gray (a teacher), 1978; children: Seth, Ben, Lily, Rosie. Education: Williams College, B.A., 1968.

ADDRESSES: E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer. Worked as a spear fisher in the Bahamas, 1968-70; Canadian Broadcasting Co., Tor-onto, Ontario, Canada, producer.

AWARDS, HONORS: Edgar Allan Poe Award nominations, best novel of 1994, Mystery Writers of America, for Lights Outs, and 2007, for Down the Rabbit Hole; Agatha Award for best children/young adult fiction, 2006, for Down the Rabbit Hole.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

The Fury of Rachel Monette, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1980.

Tongues of Fire, M. Evans (New York, NY), 1982.

Hard Rain, Dutton (New York, NY), 1988.

Pressure Drop, Dutton (New York, NY), 1989.

Revolution #9: A Thriller, Mysterious Press (New York, NY), 1992.

Lights Out, Mysterious Press (New York, NY), 1994.

The Fan, Warner Books (New York, NY), 1995.

A Perfect Crime, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 1998.

Crying Wolf, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 2000.

Last of the Dixie Heroes, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 2001.

The Tutor, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Their Wildest Dreams, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Oblivion, William Morrow (New York, NY), 2005.

End of Story, William Morrow (New York, NY), 2006.

Nerve Damage, William Morrow (New York, NY), 2007.

Delusion, William Morrow (New York, NY), 2008.

“ECHO FALLS MYSTERY” SERIES; YOUNG ADULT FICTION

Down the Rabbit Hole, Laura Geringer Books (New York, NY), 2005.

Behind the Curtain, Laura Geringer Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Into the Dark, Laura Geringer Books (New York, NY), 2008.

OTHER

Red Message, 1986.

(With Sidney D. Kirkpatrick) Turning the Tide: One Man against the Medellin Cartel (nonfiction), Dutton (New York, NY), 1991.

(With others) Up All Night: A Short Story Collection, introduction by Laura Geringer, Laura Geringer Books/HarperTeen (New York, NY), 2008.

ADAPTATIONS: The Fan was adapted for film by Frank Darabont and Phoef Sutton and released by TriStar in 1996.

SIDELIGHTS: Peter Abrahams is the author of many suspenseful novels that have become favorites with readers and critics alike. In an interview with Kay Long-cope of the Boston Globe, Abrahams explained: “They’re all sorts of thrillers, but defining them isn’t easy…. I think of them as novels but the suspense element plays a strong role. I like to lead my main character to something the reader will dread, then say, ‘Given characteristics of that particular character, that had to happen.’ I like a bit of humor, too. Generally, thrillers provide a humorless terrain.”

Abrahams’s early books often feature ordinary heroes and heroines, complicated plot twists, and political intrigue. His first, The Fury of Rachel Monette, follows the title character to Morocco, France, and Israel as she attempts to solve her husband’s murder, discover the secret of a 1942 German letter he left behind, and recover her young son, who has been kidnapped by a man posing as a rabbi. The Fury of Rachel Monette garnered praise from critics; a Publishers Weekly reviewer commented that its “steadily sustained suspense and smooth writing keep the reader hooked,”and Spectator contributor Harriet Waugh called the book “well written, fast moving, constantly surprising and jolly exciting.”

An Israel connection also figures prominently in Tongues of Fire, Abrahams’s second novel. In it, Isaac Rehv, a former Israeli soldier, flees to the United States after his country is destroyed by Arab invaders. There, Rehv conspires to assassinate an Arab leader and attracts the attention of a zealous CIA agent who tails Rehv around the world, from Canada to Sudan and Mecca. Although some reviewers considered Tongues of Fire to be a bit implausible, many praised Abrahams’s skill nonetheless. Publishers Weekly reviewer Barbara A. Bannon termed the book “fast-paced and exciting,” while Los Angeles Times Book Review contributor Raymond Mungo called it “a wickedly clever and intricate mystery.” According to a critic in the West Coast Review of Books, Abrahams’s “gripping prose can best be described as throat-grabbing.”

Abrahams’s third thriller to catch the attention of critics was Hard Rain, which conjures up the atmosphere of the late 1960s and takes its title from a Bob Dylan tune. In it, Jessie Shapiro is caught up in political intrigue as she searches for her ex-husband and young daughter, who have failed to return from a weekend trip. Defining events of the past, such as Woodstock and the Vietnam War, haunt the present as Jessie treks from Los Angeles to Vermont in search of clues. Writing in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Charles Champlin praised Hard Rain as a “top-rank adventure.” Publishers Weekly critic Sybil Steinberg called the book “an intricate, convincing thriller.” New York Times Book Review contributor William J. Harding was also enthusiastic, commenting that Hard Rain has the elements of “a good thriller”: “style, atmosphere and a surprising plot.”

Pressure Drop, Abrahams’s follow-up to Hard Rain, also generated approval from critics. According to Quill and Quire contributor Paul Stuewe, “The Fury of Rachel Monette and Hard Rain were competent thrillers, but Peter Abrahams’s latest novel breaks to the front ranks of this extremely crowded field.” In Pressure Drop, Abrahams sets up two seemingly unrelated plot lines that eventually collide. In one, suspicious and dangerous circumstances develop around Nina Kitchener, whose baby boy, conceived through artificial insemination, is kidnapped from the hospital shortly after birth. In the other, N.H. “Matt” Matthias investigates nagging questions surrounding a scuba-diving accident that took place at his resort in the Bahamas, uncovering a connection between the accident and Nina’s tragedy. Reviewing Pressure Drop in the Armchair Detective, William J. Schafer praised Abrahams’s writing as “highly literate, brisk, and graphic,” and his characterizations as “fresh and unclichéd.”

Flashbacks to 1960s Vietnam War protests provide a backdrop for Abrahams’s next novel, Revolution #9: A Thriller. The main character is Charlie Ochs, a Cape Cod lobster fisher who has been lying low since a campus protest bombing he was involved in accidentally killed a young boy. Ochs, who has spent nearly twenty years living underground, is finally tracked down by federal agents the night before his wedding. He is given an ultimatum: help the government find the bombing’s mastermind, Rebecca Klein, or serve time for his own role in the attack. According to Chicago Tribune Books contributor Richard Martins: “Charlie’s hunt through the past is an often painful but always gripping story. Abrahams weaves in and out of time and temperament with considerable skill.” Although finding Revolution #9 somewhat “uneven,” a Publishers Weekly reviewer nonetheless noted that “expert pacing and an intriguing plot hold the reader’s interest.”

Abrahams followed Revolution #9 with Lights Out, which received an Edgar Allan Poe Award nomination for best novel of 1994. The book’s main character is Eddie Nye, who, despite his innocence, has spent fifteen years in prison on drug charges. He is not free long before he is again plunged into dangerous intrigue while investigating his frame-up. According to Publishers Weekly critic Sybil Steinberg, Abrahams “creates a fascinating and memorable character in Eddie Nye.” Steinberg further noted: “Consistently interesting and suspenseful, his thriller’s shocking outcome is revealed only on the very last page.” According to the author, Lights Out marked the beginning of a new phase in Abrahams’s work, where he began to expand beyond the limits of the genre.

In The Fan, Abrahams focuses on Gil Renard, a down-and-out traveling salesman, and Bobby Rayburn, an arrogant and successful baseball player who is riding out a batting slump. Renard, a baseball fanatic, has lost his job and wife and has slid into committing petty crimes. He becomes obsessed with Rayburn, managing to become the caretaker on the ballplayer’s estate while he plans to murder the star on the field. The Fan was a hit with critics; Booklist contributor Wes Lukowsky called it a “first-rate thriller,” and Library Journal reviewer Marylaine Block termed it an “excellent novel.” The Fan was filmed in 1996 by Tony Scott, starring Robert DeNiro and Wesley Snipes.

The thriller A Perfect Crime tells of Roger Culling-wood’s murderous plot against his wife. Though he is in a marriage that lacks depth and has been on unemployment for months, Roger’s idyllic perception of his life is not shattered until he learns that his wife, Francie, is romantically involved with a well-known local psychologist. Roger, an extremely intelligent person desperate to restore his enormous ego, engineers a “perfect” plan to kill his wife. He loses control of his plot after he enlists the help of a previously convicted murderer. Although a Publishers Weekly critic felt that Roger and his cohort were unrealistic characters who “lack dimension,” the critic noted that the other major characters were “well-drawn.” In contrast, Booklist contributor Thomas Gaughan uniformly praised Abrahams’ characterizations as well as complimenting the author’s “complex and compelling [plotting]” and almost flawless [dialogue].”Gaughan noted, however, that the “satisfying” novel has “a subtle sense of the mathematical certainty to the denouement.” “A Perfect Crime is fast-paced, tense, even witty as it careens to its bloody conclusion,” noted Karen Anderson in her Library Journal review.

The ethics of four young adults from various social classes are exposed and tested in actions and reactions associated with acquiring money and material goods. What will a middle-class kid from a small Colorado town do to pay for a prestigious university education in New England? Abrahams presents one scenario in Crying Wolf, “a suspense novel built around kidnapping, extortion and youthful stupidity,” related a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Nat, a high school valedictorian, uses his two thousand dollar essay contest winnings to help his mother cover the tuition for his freshman year at Inverness. When his mother loses her job, Nat must find another way to subsidize his education. He sets up a kidnapping plot with the help of Grace and Izzie, the wealthy twins Nat becomes involved with at Inverness. As Vanessa Bush indicated in Booklist, the trio’s plan is devised to be “a ‘victimless’ crime with one of [the twins] as the kidnapping subject, to get the money from an indifferent father.” The father prevents the kidnapping, however, and Freedy, a thief and suspected rapist from the “wrong side” of the college town, takes the trio’s kidnapping idea and adapts it, making a more dangerous plan. When Nat tries to expose Freedy’s plans, people think that he is just “crying wolf.”

The title character in The Tutor was likened by a Publishers Weekly contributor to the Alfred Hitchcock character Norman Bates of Psycho fame: an apparently ordinary and pleasant fellow who gradually emerges as a sinister threat to an entire family. Hired by the suburban Gardner family to prepare son Brandon for his Scholastic Aptitude Test, tutor Julian Sawyer manages to penetrate the weaknesses of the family members, guiding each toward a personalized, destructive objective. It is up to Brandon’s teenaged sister Ruby to unravel the emerging clues and save her family from danger. The Publishers Weekly reviewer observed: “Once again this author finds menace in dailiness.” A contributor to Kirkus Reviews called The Tutor a reflection of “the familiar laced with lingering irony.”

The novel Their Wildest Dreams features not one but several potential troublemakers and multiple storylines. Single mom Helen Larkin, who works as an exotic dancer, feels eerily uncomfortable about her employer’s “intentions.” Strip club patron and aspiring crime writer Nicholas Loeb is lured by an Internet literary critic across the line from imagination into the realm of true crime. Larkin’s teenage daughter develops a crush on a ranch hand and would-be bank robber at her father’s dude ranch. The unlikely cast of characters converges at a small Arizona border town, where all the plot lines come together. A reviewer of Their Wildest Dreams commented in Kirkus Reviews that Abrahams’s attention to minute detail and the flaws of his characters make them not only believable, but “engaging.” A Publishers Weekly contributor recommended the novel as a “wildly inventive, captivating caper” and a “bravura thrillfest.”

In the novel Oblivion the threat comes not only from Abrahams’s solid and believable characters, but from the foe within. Private detective Nick Petrov must try to locate a missing teenaged girl while in the throes of memory loss and mental confusion caused by a cerebral hemorrhage that puts a temporary halt to his investigation. Both challenges entwine Nick’s career and his personal life in what New Yorker critic Joyce Carol Oates referred to as “a Dali landscape of baffling clues, memory lapses, and visual hallucinations.” The tension of the investigation is increased by the psychological fear associated with Nick’s amnesia. He believes that following the course of his interrupted investigation backward to its roots may help him recover his memory. Instead, the fragmented clues available to him cause Nick to question his own integrity. Could he himself be a criminal—even a murderer? Oates found Oblivion to be, like Abrahams’s earlier novels, “gratifyingly attentive to psychological detail, richly atmospheric, layered in ambiguity.” She concluded that “Peter Abrahams’s strongest novels seem to suggest, despite their allegiance to [the thriller] genre, a fascination with something beyond mere form.”

Commenting on his books to Kay Longcope in the Boston Globe, Abrahams stated: “I’m interested in putting ordinary people into extraordinary situations, as Alfred Hitchcock did, rather than making James Bond-type superheroes and putting them in life and death situations. You can generate a lot more dread. I want to directly attack the imagination, to ensnare it. That’s the way a good book works for me.”

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Armchair Detective, spring, 1990, William J. Schafer, review of Pressure Drop, p. 238.

Booklist, August, 1992, Peter Robertson, review of Revolution #9: A Thriller, p. 1998; February 1, 1994, Wes Lukowsky, review of Lights Out, p. 996; January 15, 1995, Wes Lukowsky, review of The Fan, p. 868; July, 1998, Thomas Gaughan, review of A Perfect Crime, p. 1827; August, 1999, Karen Harris, review of A Perfect Crime, p. 2075; January 1, 2000, Vanessa Bush, review of Crying Wolf, p. 833.

Boston Globe, February 22, 1988, interview by Kay Longcope.

Entertainment Weekly, April 21, 1995, Gene Lyons, review of The Fan, p. 49.

Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2002, review of The Tutor, p. 588; June 15, 2003, review of Their Wildest Dreams, p. 817; December 15, 2004, review of Oblivion, p. 1151.

Library Journal, August, 1980, Samuel Simons, review of The Fury of Rachel Monette, p. 1655; April 15, 1982, review of Tongues of Fire, p. 823; December, 1987, A.M.B. Amantia, review of Hard Rain, p. 126; May 1, 1991, review of Turning the Tide: One Man against the Medellin Cartel, p. 89; July, 1992, Michele Leber, review of Revolution #9, p. 119; February 1, 1994, Dan Bogey, review of Lights Out, p. 109; February 1, 1995, Marylaine Block, review of The Fan, p. 97; August, 1998, Karen Anderson, review of A Perfect Crime, p. 128; December, 1998, Danna Bell-Russel, review of A Perfect Crime, p. 173.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, June 27, 1982, Raymond Mungo, review of Tongues of Fire, p. 10; January 17, 1988, Charles Champlin, review of Hard Rain, p. 10.

New Republic, September 9, 1996, Stanley Kauffmann, review of The Fan, p. 37.

New York, July 5, 1982, Rhoda Koenig, review of The Fury of Rachel Monette, p. 103.

New Yorker, April 4, 2005, Joyce Carol Oates, review of Oblivion, p. 94.

New York Times Book Review, February 21, 1988, William J. Harding, review of Hard Rain, p. 20; October 11, 1998, Marilyn Stasio, review of A Perfect Crime, p. 28.

Penthouse, February, 1981, Marilyn Stasio, review of The Fury of Rachel Monette, p. 48.

Playboy, June, 1991, Digby Diehl, review of Turning the Tide, p. 38.

Publishers Weekly, June 27, 1980, review of The Fury of Rachel Monette, p. 79; April 9, 1982, Barbara A. Bannon, review of Tongues of Fire, p. 43; November 6, 1987, Sybil Steinberg, review of Hard Rain, p. 58; September 29, 1989, review of Pressure Drop, p. 60; April 19, 1991, review of Turning the Tide, p. 54; June 1, 1992, review of Revolution #9, p. 50; January 10, 1994, Sybil Steinberg, review of Lights Out, pp. 43-44; January 23, 1995, review of The Fan, pp. 58-59; July 3, 1995, p. 26; July 20, 1998, review of A Perfect Crime, p. 206; January 10, 2000, review of Crying Wolf, p. 42; July 1, 2002, review of The Tutor, p. 55; August 4, 2003, review of Their Wildest Dreams, p. 56; April 4, 2005, review of Down the Rabbit Hole: An Echo Falls Mystery, p. 60.