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Morbid

Rooster Illusion
Staff member
HERE, NOW
– I barely have time to get news articles written up anymore, much less reviews, but I just finished The Short Drop by Matthew FitzSimmons and figured I would add my two cents.

Here’s the synopsis from Amazon:

A decade ago, fourteen-year-old Suzanne Lombard, the daughter of Benjamin Lombard—then a senator, now a powerful vice president running for the presidency—disappeared in the most sensational missing-person case in the nation’s history. Still unsolved, the mystery remains a national obsession.

For legendary hacker and marine Gibson Vaughn, the case is personal—Suzanne Lombard had been like a sister to him. On the tenth anniversary of her disappearance, the former head of Benjamin Lombard’s security asks for Gibson’s help in a covert investigation of the case, with new evidence in hand.

Haunted by tragic memories, he jumps at the chance to uncover what happened all those years ago. Using his military and technical prowess, he soon discovers multiple conspiracies surrounding the Lombard family—and he encounters powerful, ruthless political players who will do anything to silence him and his team. With new information surfacing that could threaten Lombard’s bid for the presidency, Gibson must stay one step ahead as he navigates a dangerous web to get to the truth.

Despite the glowing reviews, words like “hacker,” “political,” and “military” kept me away. Not that I won’t read a good, political thriller, but my reading time grows shorter so I usually stick to the mystery\horror genre. I am so glad I made an exception.

First off, it is not a political thriller. It’s a missing person mystery with some political elements. .For those of you whose eyes glaze over at the mere mention of computers in your fiction, you’ll be happy to know the hacking portions are handled in a realistic, informative fashion and are not the focus of the story.

More importantly, The Short Drop is a bonafide page-turner. I hate using that overused description, but there you go. Like any good mystery, the story would zig when I thought for sure it would zag and, more importantly, I gave a shit about the characters and their outcomes.

I don’t want to go into much more than what the above synopsis already tells you, for fear of spoiling anything, but I will say this: I read it for so long while sitting on the toilet that my legs fell asleep. A book that does that is a book I will definitely suggest other people to check out. The last book to do that to me was A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay.

This is FitzSimmons’ debut novel and, while I know it sounds cliche, I cannot wait to see what he puts out next.

[rating:4/5]

This article was written by Morbid for The Dreamin Demon - the Internet's self-appointed buzzkill.


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