Books › Chasing the dime
Chasing the dime
a novel
535 pages
A relentless, neon-lit descent into a hidden urban underworld where a single wrong number unravels an entire life.
What it feels like
Reading this thriller feels like stepping onto a steep, slippery slope in the dead of night. It is a masterclass in escalating paranoia, pulling you out of a sterile, orderly corporate world and plunging you into a shadowy, neon-lit underbelly of secrets and danger. The narrative moves with a propulsive, breathless momentum, mirroring the protagonist's frantic race to uncover the truth before his own life is entirely destroyed. The prose is lean and cinematic, stripping away excess to focus purely on tension and survival. It is a gritty, claustrophobic experience that preys on the terrifying idea of how easily a normal life can be hijacked by a random twist of fate, perfect for anyone who loves a relentless, wrong-man nightmare.
- Mood
- paranoiac
- shadowy
- claustrophobic
- suspenseful
- Tone
- tense
- urgent
- gritty
- cynical
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- obsession and voyeurism · hidden urban underworlds · the illusion of control · technological vulnerability · unintended consequences
- The writing
- Lean, cinematic, and relentlessly efficient, driving the narrative forward with hard-boiled precision.
- The arc
- Moves from mild, voyeuristic curiosity into a spiraling, frantic desperation as the protagonist's orderly life is completely dismantled.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave high-stakes, wrong-man thrillers where a single mistake drags an ordinary person into a gritty, neon-lit nightmare.
Content notes
- violence
- murder
- sex work
- stalking
- peril
About the book
From the bestselling author of A Darkness More than Night comes a searing thriller about a simple wrong number that opens a line into terror. Henry Price has a whole new life-new apartment, new telephone, new telephone number. He soon discovers that the messages on his line are for a woman named Lilly, and she is in serious trouble that could cost him all he holds dear. Pierce is inexorably drawn into Lilly's world, and it's unlike any world he's ever known. It is a nighttime world of escort services, websites, sex, and secret identities. Pierce tumbles through a hole, abandoning his orderly life in a frantic race to save the life of a woman he has never met. Pierce's skills as a computer entrepreneur allow him to trace Lilly's last days with some precision. But every step into Lilly's past takes Price deeper into a web of inescapable intricacy-and a decision that could cost him everything he owns and holds dear.
Description from Open Library.
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