Getaway [Hardcover]

Lisa Brackmann (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 1, 2012

From the author of New York Times bestselling Rock Paper Tiger comes the most electrifying thriller of the summer.

Michelle Mason tells herself she’s on vacation. A brief stay in the Mexican resort town of Puerto Vallarta. It’s a chance to figure out her next move after the unexpected death of her banker husband, who’s left behind a scandal and a pile of debt. The trip was already paid for, and it beats crashing in her sister’s spare room. When a good-looking man named Daniel approaches her on the beach, the margaritas have kicked in and she decides: why not?

But the date doesn’t go as either of them planned. An assault on Daniel in her hotel room, switched cell phones and an encounter with a “friend” of Daniel’s named Gary gets Michelle enmeshed in a covert operation involving drug runners, goons, and venture capitalists. Michelle already knows she’s caught in a dangerous trap. But she quickly finds that running is not an option. If she’s not careful, she’ll end up buried in the town dump, with the rest of the trash. Now she needs to fight smart if she wants to survive her vacation.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Getaway draws you in with the immediate force of its sensuous atmosphere, its living and breathing characters, its riveting plot – and most of all, with its sheer believability. Did you ever get drunk on a holiday and do one or two things the guidebooks say you shouldn’t? Well, this is what it could have led to…"
—Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis, New York Times bestselling authors of The Boy in the Suitcase

"Brackmann strikes exactly the right mood in this frantic look at an ordinary woman who can't seem to claw her way out of the mess in which she's managed to land."
—Kirkus Reviews 

"Brackmann follows up her debut, Rock Paper Tiger, an Amazon Best Book of 2010, with a sinister tale of a vacation gone bad...Puerto Vallarta provides a lush backdrop for Brackmann's richly drawn ex-pat world, which is as eccentric as it is dangerous."
—Publishers Weekly

International Noir Fiction: “The ending fulfills several strands of the book without totally wrapping up others. It almost suggests the ending of the Tony Scott film, veering off into a half-fairy tale, half metafictional other world: Getaway's ending is more believable than that of True Romance, but it's open-ended and contains elements of wish-fulfillment in the same sort of way…. Altogether, Getaway, due from Soho Press in May, is an interesting and entertaining update on the damsel-in-distress story (from the damsel's point of view) as well as the Ambler-esque spy thriller.”

Praise for Rock Paper Tiger

“Lisa Brackmann’s novel gets off to a fast start and never lets up.... Be prepared for a wild ride.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Timely and hip.... Brackmann can write.”
—Boston Globe

“A pulse-racer.”
—Entertainment Weekly

About the Author

Lisa Brackmann has worked as a motion picture executive and an issues researcher in a presidential campaign. A southern California native, she currently lives in Venice, California, with her three cats. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, Rock Paper Tiger, was an Amazon Best Book of 2010.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Soho Press; Limited edition (May 1, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1616952407
• ISBN-13: 978-1616952402
• Product Dimensions: 1 x 5.8 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,283,840 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lisa Brackmann's debut novel, ROCK PAPER TIGER, set on the fringes of the Chinese art world, made several "Best of 2010" lists, including Amazon's Top 100 Novels and Top 10 Mystery/Thrillers. Her second novel is GETAWAY (May 2012), a thriller set in Mexico, chosen as an Amazon Best Novel of the Month and an ALA Summer Reading Pick. She has lived and traveled extensively in China, the setting of her third novel, HOUR OF THE RAT, publishing in 2013.

Her first published short story appeared in Akashic Books' SAN DIEGO NOIR (June 2011).

Lisa is a California native and longtime resident of Venice Beach.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Real Page Turner! Danger, Excitement, Tight Suspense May 1, 2012

By Sia McKye Over Coffee

Format:Hardcover

Rock Paper Tiger
San Diego Noir (Akashic Noir)

LOOK OUT! GETAWAY is going to be hitting A LOT of BEST OF LISTS in the coming months!

WELCOME to gorgeous Puerto Vallarta, Mexico--home of margaritas, sunset beaches, a shady American ex-pat community, and a barely-hidden drug syndicate.

One too many margaritas, a chance encounter between a restless woman and a sexy stranger, and you have an engrossing tale filled with excitement and danger.

I have been looking forward to reading this book since I first heard about the setting and premise. Getaway didn't disappoint me. It's well written and believable. This is the sort of situation that could happen all too easily to an unaware vacationer. Getaway was so absorbing that I finished it a day. If you like thrillers with an authentic setting, realistic characters, and the twists and turns of deadly peril, then Getaway is the book to read this summer.

Ms. Brackmann has a knack of creating characters that have faced trauma in their lives and as a result have become somewhat indifferent or ambivalent; and placing them in situations that forces them to pull on inner reserves and strengths to deal with it.

Case in point, Michelle Mason. Recently widowed, Michelle is facing, thanks to her dearly departed husband, social scandal and financial ruin--the end of the easy life she has become accustomed to. Puerto Vallarta was supposed to be a vacation and a time to reflect upon what she was going to do with the rest of her life. Instead, like Alice in Wonderland, she gets dropped down the rabbit hole into a world where nothing is what it seems to be. Drug wars, the DEA, and where good guys aren't always good and trusting the wrong people can get you killed.

Michelle's journey pulls her out of her apathy and into fighting for survival against the odds where she can trust no one but herself.

What follows is an edge of your seat, believable, and tightly woven story of suspense and danger played out in the steamy underbelly of Mexico--where winning means you LIVE.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Not only a thriller, but an in-depth character study as well May 7, 2012

By Cathy G. Cole TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

First Line: Michelle dropped the sarong she'd started to tie around her waist onto her lounge chair.

Michelle Mason needed to get away from her troubles for a while. Widowed a few months ago, she's been discovering just how secretive and inept a business person her late husband had been. The trip was already paid for, so a few days in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico seemed in order. She'd relax, calm down, get her head on straight, and then return to Los Angeles to finish dealing with the mess.

Trouble is, a handsome man named Daniel approaches her on the beach, they hit it off, have a few margaritas, and Michelle thinks, "Why not?" That one little decision has the power to change the entire course of her life.

Later that night, someone breaks into Michelle's hotel room and assaults Daniel. Her cell phone and Daniel's get switched, and someone named Gary forces Michelle to spy on Daniel. From what little Michelle is able to piece together, this all involves drugs, the people who get rich from selling drugs, and their hired hands who think nothing of torturing and killing to get what they want. She knows she's in danger but quickly learns that running isn't an option-- or she's going to wind up in the Puerto Vallarta garbage dump.

This book is fast-paced and pulled me right in although I did have a difficult time warming up to Michelle. During the first part of the book, she's a typical consumer housewife, used to spending her days having lunch with the girls and buying the latest fashions. When I talk about sunglasses, I refer to them as sunglasses. When I talk about my purse, I call it a purse, and when I step into a pair of shoes, I have this annoying tendency to call them shoes. Michelle refers to them by their designer labels. She and I don't inhabit the same planet.

Besides her designer leanings, Michelle is used to the protection normally accorded to a woman married to a man of means and living in a big house in a large affluent American city. It's almost as if she's forgotten how to think for herself or how to survive without all the labels. When she first comes into contact with a corrupt Mexican police officer, she's completely unprepared, and she has absolutely no chance of getting past a villain like Gary.

And can she trust Daniel-- someone who seems to be involved in all this drug stuff up to his pearly white teeth? It takes her a while to realize that she is really fighting for her very life, and once she knows the real score, and begins to reason things out and to try to fight back, Getaway really takes off. Michelle doesn't turn into Lara Croft or Wonder Woman or Mrs. Peel, but she finds her backbone, and it's a glorious thing to watch. (I think I even cheered a time or two.)

Getaway may be listed as a thriller, and it does have all the action and fast pace of one. What's unexpected and completely refreshing is the fact that it is also an in-depth character study of a woman caught up in bizarre circumstances who's forced to fight for her survival when there's no one else she can trust.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An gritty topical thriller with noir undertones. June 13, 2012

By Robert Carraher

Format:Hardcover

Puerto Vallarta, a tropical destination with pristine, sandy beaches and funky little bars replete with thatched roofs where the tequila flows freely and your cares and woes melt away. A virtual paradise on the Mexican coast, surrounded by, yet untouched by the political and criminal chaos that is the rest of Mexico with it's drug wars and rampant corruption. A place where dressing for dinner means putting on a shirt or wrapping a sarong over your bikini.

Michelle Mason, recently widowed and finding her husband has left her in financial ruin and socially scandalized, decides it is just the place to spend a week away from the bankers, debt collectors and lawyers before having to face an uncertain future that she is woefully unprepared to deal with. When she meets a handsome fellow American on the beach and they wind up in her hotel room, Michelle decides this night of sex is just what she needs before departing paradise for the daunting prospects awaiting her back in the states. But, awakened from the languid atmosphere of post coital bliss by two masked men who have broken into her room, beaten Daniel unconscious and left him bleeding on the floor, Michelle is shaken out of her tropical languor. the police tell her, Vallarta is still Mexico after all.

When Michelle finally decides to return the L.A. she her cab is stopped and conveniently the cop finds cocaine in her bag. She is thrown into a Mexican jail and not given a phone call or any explanation. The deplorable conditions are described in grizzly detail. After a day or so the mysterious Gary shows up, he claims to be a friend of Daniel's and semi-officially attached to the American Embassy, but he refuses to give her her passport, and instead of taking her to the Embassy, he takes her to a back street hotel.

Gary has a proposition for Michelle. Watch Danny. Report back on who he sees, what they say. An don't try and sabotage the operation or tip him off. Gary and his `organization' will know if she does. In return, he'll square her with the Mexican official, get her passport back, and perhaps even fix her financial situation back in L.A.

Michelle is plunged into a nether world of Puerto Vallarta expatriates, shady Mexican businessmen that seem to be Danny's employers, smugglers and Mexican uber rich, upper crust wheelers and dealers. She doesn't know who to trust, she can no longer trust her instincts to discern good guys from bad guys, and she come to realize that everybody is bad to one degree or another and that no one is entirely who they seem to be.

Brackmann tells the story in gritty prose, using all the black keys to set a noirish mood across the bright, sunny beaches of Vallarta. The book is a thriller, with a romantic theme and borders on noir with every character being tainted by life, greed or their surroundings. Even Michelle is not untainted, what does she have to go home to? And despite her suspicions of drug dealings and cartel involvement she plays his lover, all the while planning to take the Judas silver to destroy him and save herself.

Brackmann writes in a hazy engaging way that languidly draws the reader in, while driving the plot with the abandon of a Tijuana Taxi Driver. A great writer can often tell a story with the words he o she leaves out, without all the details but by immersing the reader into the character of the characters and letting them finish scenes in their mind. Brackmann excels at this and as finally more and more of the main characters motives are revealed, to one degree or another, and the devils both the reader and the protagonist know and don't know step into the light we finally see that everyone is tainted but not everyone is evil.

The Dirty Lowdown