Severance Package (Paperback)

~ (Author) "His name was Paul Lewis . . . . . . and he didn't know he had seven minutes to live..." (more)
Key Phrases: north fire tower, popcorn tins, concrete landing, David Murphy, Amy Felton, Molly Lewis (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At the start of this violent and intense noir and espionage hybrid from Swierczynski (The Blonde), David Murphy, the CEO of a Philadelphia financial company, summons his seven staffers for an important Saturday meeting, where he informs them that the business is being shut down, and that unfortunately he has to kill them all. Every escape route from the 36th-floor office has been sealed off or rigged with lethal sarin gas. Suddenly, mousy Molly Lewis pulls out a gun and puts a slug in Murphy's head. The resulting chaos sets off a panicked scramble, as the reader gradually learns that the business is a front for a covert intelligence group called CI-6. Thousands of miles away in Scotland, two men monitor Molly Lewis, who's actually a highly trained Polish operative named Ania Kuczun, as she performs her own private audition, which involves the systematic elimination of her co-workers using a truly imaginative array of methods. This action fest moves swiftly to its darkly satisfying conclusion. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Praise for Severance Package:

 

"[A] kinetic story, which never stops moving...turbocharged entertainment." --Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times

 

"Swierczynski writes a brand of thriller whose pacing forces us to reexamine our casual use of the word breakneck...This is essentially one long action scene that begs for the next Tarantino to direct. But if that sounds like faint praise, it isn't: there are both enough cliche killers and comedy to make us raise two thumbs up. If you want your thrillers to be, well, thrilling, pop a big bowl of corn--you won't leave your seat until the end."--Booklist

 

"The best word to describe Swierczynski's latest thriller is frenetic, and even that is likely an understatement." --Library Journal

 

"Fans of crime fiction will find Swierczynski's latest offering to be a guilty pleasure of unparalleled magnitude. With pedal-to-the-metal pacing, characters who appear to be meek cubicle dwellers a la 'Office Space' but are really cold-blooded, black-ops killers, and enough gut-churning violence to make a Quentin Tarantino movie look like a Disney musical replete with singing candlesticks and teapots, the dark, twisted energy in this novel is palpable." --The Chicago Tribune

“A hot shot of adrenaline straight to the neural plexus.” –Joe Schreiber, author of Chasing the Dead and Eat the Dark

Praise for The Blonde:

"Compulsively readable...rockets forward with inventive ferocity. [The] plot uncoils in a rapid-fire series of time-coded moments that generate a relentless tension. Brilliantly paced insanity."

--Houston Chronicle"Hardboiled enough to crack walnuts, [with] action more precipitous than a bobsled run." --Philadelphia Inquirer
"Rapid-fire pacing, hard-boiled dialogue and excellent local color."—Publishers Weekly
"This is another fast, funny, and action-packed outing from a writer who, fortunately for us, doesn't seem to know how to slow down."—Booklist
"THE BLONDE will be the most madcap, mordantly funny and completely mesmerizing novel you will read this year. The action begins in the first sentence and doesn’t let up until the last."--Mystery News
"Duane Swierczynski's new novel, THE BLONDE, is as lean as a starving model, mean as a snake, and fast as a jet. It's also one hell of fine read. This guy has got to be the hottest new thing in crime fiction, and THE BLONDE is one of the best crime reads I've had in some time."--Joe R. Lansdale, bestselling author of THE BOTTOMS

See all Editorial Reviews

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Product Details Paperback: 263 pages Publisher: Minotaur Books (May 27, 2008) Language: English ISBN-10: 0312343809 ISBN-13: 978-0312343804 Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches Shipping Weight: 1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies) Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews) Amazon.com Sales Rank: #325,507 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

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Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
His name was Paul Lewis . . . . . . and he didn't know he had seven minutes to live. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
north fire tower, popcorn tins, concrete landing

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
David Murphy, Amy Felton, Molly Lewis, Terrill Joe, Nichole Wise, Ethan Goins, Vincent Marella, Market Street, Center Strike, Moscow Rules, Twentieth Street, World Trade Center, Paul Lewis, Ania Kuczun, Omega Project, Outward Bound, Night Nurse, Molly Kaye Finnerty, Severance Package

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	57% buy the item featured on this page: Severance Package 3.7 out of 5 stars (41) $11.16
	14% buy The Wheelman 4.4 out of 5 stars (32)
	13% buy Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse: A Novel 4.3 out of 5 stars (35) $11.69
	9% buy The Blonde 4.4 out of 5 stars (28) $11.16

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Customer Reviews

41 Reviews 5 star:  (13) 4 star:  (14) 3 star:  (4) 2 star:  (9) 1 star:  (1)           Average Customer Review 3.7 out of 5 stars (41 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews 17 of 20 people found the following review helpful: 2.0 out of 5 stars Not his finest effort, June 18, 2008 By  Jeff Marsick - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)    If there's one thing you are guaranteed of when reading Duane Swierczynski is that the characters will be quirky, the plots unabashedly over the top, and the book undeniably entertaining. The Wheelman and The Blonde were absolutely terrific romps in Duane's typical noirish style, and while Severance Package starts off interestingly, it steadily rides a downslope flightpath before augering in for an unsatisfying finish that leaves the reader feeling that Duane merely phoned this one in after envisioning just a single scene. Normally Duane is attentive to detail which lends a certain verisimilitude to the plot and helps keep the elastic of disbelief stretched to just this side of its physiologic limits. But pieces like "...Nichole had misjudged the chop. And she had, kind of, accidentally, sent fragments of bone into her best friend's brain" are just markers of lazy writing; displays that Duane's mind was on autopilot and that he chose not to create a scene but rather to perch it precariously upon a myth as hoary as one-breasted Amazons. Other scenes are fired off at machine-gun rate with details ignored such as one character running to the side of another who looks to be dead only to have in the next paragraph the character run over to the fallen comrade's side (again) in order to check for a pulse. Or the villainess who "bench-presses" a guard down a stairwell; Duane would do well to peruse an exercise manual at least once before describing physical actions. Perhaps some knowledge of weapons would benefit him, too: an HK-MP5 9mm on full auto doesn't have enough kick to knock someone off balance, let alone an automatic pistol which apparently is enough to knock Nichole over. Even the villainess becomes over-inflated with a Wal-Mart of MacGyver gear stored (we're supposed to believe) in bracelets around her wrists, the ability to fireman carry over 400 pounds, and Kerri Strug her way down 20+ flights of stairs. These are but examples culled from a myriad of irritating distractions (including the occasional disregard for physics)that takes the reader out of the story and turns the work more into a piece worthy of Mel Brooks or an adaptation of a Leslie Nielsen movie. Where Duane completely shuts his mind off and races full-speed ahead on the road of inanity occurs in the last third of the book. It's at this point that he sees himself as an amateur Dario Argento cum Michael Davis, and instead of writing tries to direct a violent orgy of unnecessary gore and gunplay. So focused is he on shocking that he doesn't allow for plot resolutions (we never find out the who or, more importantly, the WHY of the meeting and the termination orders) and ultimately decides that the inanity has gone on long enough and wraps it all up with most banal, absurd, and, well, STUPID, endings this side of a Vince Flynn novel. Don't let reviews that mention Tarantino lull you into a false sense about the quality of this nightmare. These are people who don't actualy GET Tarantino, they merely think that random excessive violence and improbable situations is what defines him. Duane may be aiming with this book to achieve such a high acclaim, unfortunately his sights are so far off target that his reputation as a capable writer suffers as collateral damage. I'm hoping this is a temporary hiccup in Duane's resume. But given this book and his recent unremarkable work on Marvel Comics' "Cable" comic book, I fear that the best may be far behind him. 7 of 8 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Go out and read all his books as soon as possible. You will not be disappointed., July 28, 2008 By  Bookreporter.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews Fans of hard-boiled mysteries have witnessed a rebirth of the genre in recent years. Charles Ardai at Hard Case Crime has introduced a new generation of readers to the long-forgotten works of pulp masters, as well as to exciting new writers such as himself and Christa Faust. At the same time a new generation of excellent writers has reinvigorated the noir genre. Ken Bruen, Jason Starr and Megan Abbott have established themselves as mystery writers we will be enjoying for decades to come. Now add to the list Duane Swierczynski, former editor-in-chief of the Philadelphia City Paper. SEVERANCE PACKAGE is his fourth novel. And if you have not read him yet and you love mysteries and action, you are in for a treat. Swierczynski, like the above mentioned writers, is destined to become a hard-boiled master. Swierczynski writes noir, but it's far from ordinary. This is noir on steroids, as his books are filled with nonstop action and mayhem. There is not a wasted word in his lean, adrenaline-driven prose. And nobody working the field today can build suspense as well. Read SEVERANCE PACKAGE and you will immediately want to seek out THE BLONDE, his novel from 2006 that was a unique modern reworking of the film noir classic DOA. SEVERANCE PACKAGE starts with seven employees being called into a Saturday "managers' meeting" of Murphy, Knox and Associations, a somewhat mysterious "financial services" firm located on the 36th floor of a Philly skyscraper. It is a sweltering hot summer day, and the employees react the same way you would at having to get up, get dressed and go into work on a Saturday morning. It gets worse. They are ushered into a conference room filled with cookies, three cartons of orange juice and four bottles of champagne. So far so good. Then their boss, David, tells them they are on "official lockdown." The phones don't work. Nobody can leave the building since the elevator has been fixed to bypass the floor, and the fire exits have been rigged with sarin gas bombs. Whoa! They are then told they are being let go from both work and the planet. They have a choice: drink the champagne and orange juice, which is poisoned and will kill them in seconds, or be shot in the head. It turns out that the company is some sort of super secret rogue CIA-type outfit set up to disrupt the bank accounts of terrorists or just about anybody else they feel like messing with. And now the operation is being terminated, so to speak. This is why noir is great fun. You might think you have a lot of bad days at work. Not like this. The firm's second-in-command, Molly, then pulls a coup by shooting David in the head, and we are off to the races. It seems the entire 36th floor has cameras all over the place, and Molly is under the impression that she is auditioning for a new job in the super-secret spy agency. And, indeed, events on the floor are being monitored by two mysterious fellows in Edinburgh, Scotland, 3,500 miles away. Who are they? Swierczynski has propelled us into a noir nightmare where nothing is what it seems and everybody is trapped in hell. Of the seven employees, only one is not a spy or covert op of some sort and is truly innocent. This PR man, Jamie DeBroux, is a former newspaper writer who needed this boring job to support his new child. The writer, in other words, as gullible dupe. There's a twist. Jamie is about to be seriously messed with. Swierczynski's greatest creation here is Molly, a red-headed killing and torture machine who is so bad she is good. All the current summer crop of cinema fictional superheroes, including Batman himself, would run and hide under the bed if they ever met Molly. Think of Linda Fiorentino from The Last Seduction and imagine her being a million times more ruthless and violent. That's Molly. But Molly, who may not be who she claims either, has a soft side. She is, after all, trying to provide for her ailing mother and ventures to the dark side out of unrequited love and a desire never to be a victim again. She's nuts, but a hell of a woman. And she never loses control. Nor will she ever give up. But still, she finds time in the middle of a small war to stop and fix her hair. "The pain didn't matter though. Her appearance did," Swierczynski writes. After all, on job interviews: "A battered face would not impress her employers." You should not root for her, but you do. Molly is the ultimate guilty pleasure. SEVERANCE PACKAGE is not for the squeamish. People are hung upside down out of 36th story windows. Others get sarin gas blasts to the face. Some suffer bullets to the head and other body parts or are attacked with razor blades, pix axes, saps, you name it. The blood flows. And yet, somehow the strongest manage to survive and fight on, at least for awhile. If you like action, you will love this book. It is a wild ride but also a fun read that keeps pages flying past. Swierczynski is great at keeping the suspense building to a boil. Readers have no idea how this story will end. It is not clichéd. And in true noir fashion, he provides twists galore that will keep you guessing even beyond the last page. In his nightmare world, people fight and die, even if they don't know exactly why or for whom. Few are truly innocent, and heaven help those who are. Noir was born in a time of uncertainly in the mid-20th century. Now we live in another uncertain time in a new century and noir is back, thrilling us with its bleak vision. Swierczynski is one of the up-and-coming stars of the mystery world. Go out and read all his books as soon as possible. You will not be disappointed. --- Reviewed by Tom Callahan 9 of 11 people found the following review helpful: 4.0 out of 5 stars Fast, Furious, Crazy Fun!!!, July 1, 2008 By  Don In Fremont (Redmond OR) - See all my reviews The world has been waiting (well, MY world anyway) for Duane Swierczynski's follow-up to the 2006 standout The Blonde for a long damn time, and it's finally here, in the form of Severance Package. Was it worth the wait? Oh, yeah. Severance Package is a rocket-fueled story of spy vs. spy, and then some, spanning continents as well as consciousness. It opens with a fairly incidental death by potato salad. Really good, we're told, potato salad. From that point, the story gets unusual. Right away we are thrust into the world of Murphy & Knox, a financial consultation firm run by one David Murphy. He's called a meeting for Saturday morning. As you can learn from the book flap, Murphy then informs his underlings that the company is, in fact, a front for an intelligence operation, and due to circumstances, it's become necessary for them all to die. He's been kind enough to provide Big Sleep-y time mimosas, or take a bullet in the head. Very considerate. What Swierczynski has done here, with amazing skill, is create a multi-focused narrative of terror and laughs. The violence is by turns stunning and hilarious, the characters become our friends and we feel for every single one of them as they take their various routes to, well, wherever. It's these characterizations that elevates Severance Package beyond what it could have easily been--a set-piece extravaganza designed for commerce. Even the secondary characters are fully-formed, giving full weight to the proceedings. If there's a nominal hero, it's Jamie DeBroux, the writer of the group. (Hmm.) He's our everyman, deposited by a playful God into some kind of apocalypse, when all he wants to do is get home to his family. Swierczynski has done a great job of letting us share his view, filtered by shock, then fear, then a comic determination, of the world exploding around him. But Severance Package is RULED by Molly Lewis. Assistant to David Murphy, she promptly turns the operation on its axis, and from that point, becomes a character of such grit and playful brutality that you'll find yourself becoming her cheerleader. Her action scenes in Severance Package are as entertaining as you will find in a thriller this year. Swierczynski does an amazing job of giving us a visual field of events, as well as keeping up the funny. Needless to say, Severance Package would make one outrageous movie, but they can't really duplicate the outsized dynamics that Duane Swierczynski creates with the voice of his own narrative. There is stuff in this book that I SO MUCH want to talk about, but I can't, so just dive in and bring your freakin' kevlar!! Yeah, definitely worth the wait.		Ad feedback   Most Recent Customer Reviews 5.0 out of 5 stars Duane Swiersynski Rocks!!! This book was the 4th book from the author that I've read and though it is not my favorite which easily is "The Wheelman" it is an amazing book none the less. Read more Published 4 months ago by Betty B. Dudley 4.0 out of 5 stars Bad day at the office "His name was Paul Lewis and he didn't know he had seven minutes to live." With that, the gates fly open and "Severence Package" is off and running. Read more Published 4 months ago by D. Sturm 4.0 out of 5 stars No More Casual Fridays! This is a fun little book, If you have ever gone into work and thought "this place will be the death of me!" than please read this right now! Read more Published 5 months ago by Sushi Girl -Laura 5.0 out of 5 stars Strap on you seatbelt It appears that some of Duane's loyal readers think this is a subpar effort, which only goes to show everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Read more Published 5 months ago by Drew Balfour 5.0 out of 5 stars action-packed fun! I rarely buy books at full price, but after reading the first few pages of this one, I snapped it up. I just plain loved it. Read more Published 7 months ago by makedah 2.0 out of 5 stars A waste of time and money I read this on my Kindle on a recent trip, after seeing it recommended somewhere. It wasn't *horrible*, but that's about the best thing that I can say about it. Read more Published 7 months ago by Scott Laird 5.0 out of 5 stars Action Packed with a Twist Severance Package starts with a bang and never stops until the last page. However, unlike typical "thriller" or "spy" genre novels, I found Severance Package to be exceedingly... Read more Published 9 months ago by David Ellis 2.0 out of 5 stars Flat This is a one-note book and that one note is violence. Part of the problem I had with it is that the book in no way matches the cover. Read more Published 9 months ago by feysidhe 5.0 out of 5 stars Good way to spend an afternoon Honestly, I usually don't read or like stories that rely on gore because the writers seem to think nastiness is a good substitute for horror or tension. Read more Published 9 months ago by M. K. Galloway 4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Way to Kill a Few Hours See storylines above. This is one of those off the shelf picks I happened to see while strolling through the library. I found it to be a quick and satisfying thriller. Read more Published 9 months ago by Konrad Kern Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews

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Product Details

• Paperback: 263 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books (May 27, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312343809
• ISBN-13: 978-0312343804
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #325,507 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not his finest effort, June 18, 2008

By	Jeff Marsick - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If there's one thing you are guaranteed of when reading Duane Swierczynski is that the characters will be quirky, the plots unabashedly over the top, and the book undeniably entertaining. The Wheelman and The Blonde were absolutely terrific romps in Duane's typical noirish style, and while Severance Package starts off interestingly, it steadily rides a downslope flightpath before augering in for an unsatisfying finish that leaves the reader feeling that Duane merely phoned this one in after envisioning just a single scene. Normally Duane is attentive to detail which lends a certain verisimilitude to the plot and helps keep the elastic of disbelief stretched to just this side of its physiologic limits. But pieces like "...Nichole had misjudged the chop. And she had, kind of, accidentally, sent fragments of bone into her best friend's brain" are just markers of lazy writing; displays that Duane's mind was on autopilot and that he chose not to create a scene but rather to perch it precariously upon a myth as hoary as one-breasted Amazons. Other scenes are fired off at machine-gun rate with details ignored such as one character running to the side of another who looks to be dead only to have in the next paragraph the character run over to the fallen comrade's side (again) in order to check for a pulse. Or the villainess who "bench-presses" a guard down a stairwell; Duane would do well to peruse an exercise manual at least once before describing physical actions. Perhaps some knowledge of weapons would benefit him, too: an HK-MP5 9mm on full auto doesn't have enough kick to knock someone off balance, let alone an automatic pistol which apparently is enough to knock Nichole over. Even the villainess becomes over-inflated with a Wal-Mart of MacGyver gear stored (we're supposed to believe) in bracelets around her wrists, the ability to fireman carry over 400 pounds, and Kerri Strug her way down 20+ flights of stairs. These are but examples culled from a myriad of irritating distractions (including the occasional disregard for physics)that takes the reader out of the story and turns the work more into a piece worthy of Mel Brooks or an adaptation of a Leslie Nielsen movie.

Where Duane completely shuts his mind off and races full-speed ahead on the road of inanity occurs in the last third of the book. It's at this point that he sees himself as an amateur Dario Argento cum Michael Davis, and instead of writing tries to direct a violent orgy of unnecessary gore and gunplay. So focused is he on shocking that he doesn't allow for plot resolutions (we never find out the who or, more importantly, the WHY of the meeting and the termination orders) and ultimately decides that the inanity has gone on long enough and wraps it all up with most banal, absurd, and, well, STUPID, endings this side of a Vince Flynn novel.

Don't let reviews that mention Tarantino lull you into a false sense about the quality of this nightmare. These are people who don't actualy GET Tarantino, they merely think that random excessive violence and improbable situations is what defines him. Duane may be aiming with this book to achieve such a high acclaim, unfortunately his sights are so far off target that his reputation as a capable writer suffers as collateral damage.

I'm hoping this is a temporary hiccup in Duane's resume. But given this book and his recent unremarkable work on Marvel Comics' "Cable" comic book, I fear that the best may be far behind him.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Go out and read all his books as soon as possible. You will not be disappointed., July 28, 2008

By	Bookreporter.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

Fans of hard-boiled mysteries have witnessed a rebirth of the genre in recent years. Charles Ardai at Hard Case Crime has introduced a new generation of readers to the long-forgotten works of pulp masters, as well as to exciting new writers such as himself and Christa Faust.

At the same time a new generation of excellent writers has reinvigorated the noir genre. Ken Bruen, Jason Starr and Megan Abbott have established themselves as mystery writers we will be enjoying for decades to come. Now add to the list Duane Swierczynski, former editor-in-chief of the Philadelphia City Paper. SEVERANCE PACKAGE is his fourth novel. And if you have not read him yet and you love mysteries and action, you are in for a treat. Swierczynski, like the above mentioned writers, is destined to become a hard-boiled master.

Swierczynski writes noir, but it's far from ordinary. This is noir on steroids, as his books are filled with nonstop action and mayhem. There is not a wasted word in his lean, adrenaline-driven prose. And nobody working the field today can build suspense as well. Read SEVERANCE PACKAGE and you will immediately want to seek out THE BLONDE, his novel from 2006 that was a unique modern reworking of the film noir classic DOA.

SEVERANCE PACKAGE starts with seven employees being called into a Saturday "managers' meeting" of Murphy, Knox and Associations, a somewhat mysterious "financial services" firm located on the 36th floor of a Philly skyscraper. It is a sweltering hot summer day, and the employees react the same way you would at having to get up, get dressed and go into work on a Saturday morning.

It gets worse. They are ushered into a conference room filled with cookies, three cartons of orange juice and four bottles of champagne. So far so good. Then their boss, David, tells them they are on "official lockdown." The phones don't work. Nobody can leave the building since the elevator has been fixed to bypass the floor, and the fire exits have been rigged with sarin gas bombs. Whoa!

They are then told they are being let go from both work and the planet. They have a choice: drink the champagne and orange juice, which is poisoned and will kill them in seconds, or be shot in the head. It turns out that the company is some sort of super secret rogue CIA-type outfit set up to disrupt the bank accounts of terrorists or just about anybody else they feel like messing with. And now the operation is being terminated, so to speak.

This is why noir is great fun. You might think you have a lot of bad days at work. Not like this.

The firm's second-in-command, Molly, then pulls a coup by shooting David in the head, and we are off to the races. It seems the entire 36th floor has cameras all over the place, and Molly is under the impression that she is auditioning for a new job in the super-secret spy agency. And, indeed, events on the floor are being monitored by two mysterious fellows in Edinburgh, Scotland, 3,500 miles away. Who are they?

Swierczynski has propelled us into a noir nightmare where nothing is what it seems and everybody is trapped in hell. Of the seven employees, only one is not a spy or covert op of some sort and is truly innocent. This PR man, Jamie DeBroux, is a former newspaper writer who needed this boring job to support his new child. The writer, in other words, as gullible dupe. There's a twist. Jamie is about to be seriously messed with.

Swierczynski's greatest creation here is Molly, a red-headed killing and torture machine who is so bad she is good. All the current summer crop of cinema fictional superheroes, including Batman himself, would run and hide under the bed if they ever met Molly. Think of Linda Fiorentino from The Last Seduction and imagine her being a million times more ruthless and violent. That's Molly.

But Molly, who may not be who she claims either, has a soft side. She is, after all, trying to provide for her ailing mother and ventures to the dark side out of unrequited love and a desire never to be a victim again. She's nuts, but a hell of a woman.

And she never loses control. Nor will she ever give up. But still, she finds time in the middle of a small war to stop and fix her hair. "The pain didn't matter though. Her appearance did," Swierczynski writes. After all, on job interviews: "A battered face would not impress her employers." You should not root for her, but you do. Molly is the ultimate guilty pleasure.

SEVERANCE PACKAGE is not for the squeamish. People are hung upside down out of 36th story windows. Others get sarin gas blasts to the face. Some suffer bullets to the head and other body parts or are attacked with razor blades, pix axes, saps, you name it. The blood flows. And yet, somehow the strongest manage to survive and fight on, at least for awhile. If you like action, you will love this book. It is a wild ride but also a fun read that keeps pages flying past.

Swierczynski is great at keeping the suspense building to a boil. Readers have no idea how this story will end. It is not clichéd. And in true noir fashion, he provides twists galore that will keep you guessing even beyond the last page. In his nightmare world, people fight and die, even if they don't know exactly why or for whom. Few are truly innocent, and heaven help those who are.

Noir was born in a time of uncertainly in the mid-20th century. Now we live in another uncertain time in a new century and noir is back, thrilling us with its bleak vision. Swierczynski is one of the up-and-coming stars of the mystery world. Go out and read all his books as soon as possible. You will not be disappointed.

--- Reviewed by Tom Callahan

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast, Furious, Crazy Fun!!!, July 1, 2008

By	Don In Fremont (Redmond OR) - See all my reviews

The world has been waiting (well, MY world anyway) for Duane Swierczynski's follow-up to the 2006 standout The Blonde for a long damn time, and it's finally here, in the form of Severance Package. Was it worth the wait?

Oh, yeah.

Severance Package is a rocket-fueled story of spy vs. spy, and then some, spanning continents as well as consciousness.

It opens with a fairly incidental death by potato salad. Really good, we're told, potato salad. From that point, the story gets unusual.

Right away we are thrust into the world of Murphy & Knox, a financial consultation firm run by one David Murphy. He's called a meeting for Saturday morning. As you can learn from the book flap, Murphy then informs his underlings that the company is, in fact, a front for an intelligence operation, and due to circumstances, it's become necessary for them all to die. He's been kind enough to provide Big Sleep-y time mimosas, or take a bullet in the head. Very considerate.

What Swierczynski has done here, with amazing skill, is create a multi-focused narrative of terror and laughs. The violence is by turns stunning and hilarious, the characters become our friends and we feel for every single one of them as they take their various routes to, well, wherever. It's these characterizations that elevates Severance Package beyond what it could have easily been--a set-piece extravaganza designed for commerce. Even the secondary characters are fully-formed, giving full weight to the proceedings.

If there's a nominal hero, it's Jamie DeBroux, the writer of the group. (Hmm.) He's our everyman, deposited by a playful God into some kind of apocalypse, when all he wants to do is get home to his family. Swierczynski has done a great job of letting us share his view, filtered by shock, then fear, then a comic determination, of the world exploding around him.

But Severance Package is RULED by Molly Lewis. Assistant to David Murphy, she promptly turns the operation on its axis, and from that point, becomes a character of such grit and playful brutality that you'll find yourself becoming her cheerleader. Her action scenes in Severance Package are as entertaining as you will find in a thriller this year. Swierczynski does an amazing job of giving us a visual field of events, as well as keeping up the funny. Needless to say, Severance Package would make one outrageous movie, but they can't really duplicate the outsized dynamics that Duane Swierczynski creates with the voice of his own narrative.

There is stuff in this book that I SO MUCH want to talk about, but I can't, so just dive in and bring your freakin' kevlar!!

Yeah, definitely worth the wait.