Trust No One [Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged] [MP3 CD]

Gregg Hurwitz (Author), Patrick Lawlor (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 23, 2009

Over the past two decades, Nick Horrigan has built a quiet, safe life until, one night, a SWAT team bursts into his apartment, grabs him, and drags him to a waiting helicopter. A terrorist has seized control of a nuclear reactor, threatening to blow it up. And the only person he’ll talk to is Nick. When they come face-to-face, he promises to tell Nick the real truth behind the events that shattered his life twenty years ago. At seventeen years old, Nick Horrigan made a deadly mistake—one that cost his stepfather his life, endangered his mother, and sent him into hiding for years. Now what Nick discovers in that nuclear plant leaves him with only two choices—to start running again, or to fight and finally uncover the secrets that have held him hostage all these years. As Nick peels back layer after layer of lies and deception, buffeted between the buried horrors of the past and the deadly intrigues of the present, he finds his own life—and the lives of nearly everyone he loves—at risk. And the only thing guiding him through this deadly labyrinth are his stepfather’s dying words: Trust no one.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hurwitz (Last Shot) blasts new life into a well-worn theme—the prominent politician trying to hide a dark incident from his past—in this intelligent thriller. Late one night, the Secret Service snatches 36-year-old Nick Horrigan, who's led a quiet life since making a fatal mistake in his teens, and whisks him to the San Onofre, Calif., nuclear plant. There a terrorist threatens to set off a bomb unless he can talk to Nick, who hasn't got the slightest idea why he's been summoned. After the terrorist gets his head blown off, Nick realizes this and subsequent events are connected to the death years earlier of his Secret Service agent stepfather. Working with his homeless pal, Homer, and his computer whiz ex-girlfriend, Induma, Nick pieces together a string of clues that point to a paternity case against either the U.S. president, Andrew Bilton, or Sen. Jasper Caruthers, Bilton's opponent in an upcoming election. While more astute readers may intuit the bad guy, Nick's ethical dilemmas, girlfriend dramas and sleuthing provide plenty of excitement. Author tour. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Each night for the last 17 years, at precisely 2:18 a.m., thirtysomething Nick Horrigan has awakened in a panicked sweat. But as this novel begins, he’s awakened instead by a SWAT team bursting into his modest Santa Monica condo. The invaders, U.S. Secret Service agents, tell him that a terrorist has entered a nuclear power plant and is threatening to blow it up unless he gets to speak to Nick. In minutes, he’s in a helicopter on his way to meet a man he’s never heard of, and he learns that the terrorist is not a terrorist at all. It’s a slam-bang beginning to a fast-paced thriller that involves two presidential candidates, bent Secret Service agents, Bulgarian thugs-for-hire, a handful of murders, and, eventually, the reason Nick wakes up at 2:18 a.m. The scope of the book’s plot is too circuitous and elaborate to detail, but the page-to-page suspense and the breakneck pacing will please Hurwitz’s growing audience. --Thomas Gaughan --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• MP3 CD
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio on MP3-CD; MP3 Una edition (June 23, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1423380878
• ISBN-13: 978-1423380870
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,498,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gregg Hurwitz is the critically acclaimed, internationally bestselling author of The Tower, Minutes to Burn, Do No Harm, The Kill Clause, The Program, Troubleshooter, Last Shot, The Crime Writer, Trust No One, They're Watching, and coming soon, You're Next. His books have been nominated for numerous awards, shortlisted for best novel of the year by International Thriller Writers, nominated for CWA's Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, chosen as feature selections for all four major literary book clubs, honored as Book Sense Picks, and translated into twenty languages.

Currently a consulting producer on ABC's "V," he has written screenplays for or sold spec scripts to Warner Bros., Paramount, MGM, Jerry Bruckheimer Films, and ESPN, developed TV series for Warner Bros. and Lakeshore, written Wolverine, Punisher, and others for Marvel, and published numerous academic articles on Shakespeare. He has taught fiction writing in the USC English Department, and guest lectured for UCLA, and for Harvard in the United States and around the world. In the course of researching his thrillers, he has sneaked onto demolition ranges with Navy SEALs, swam with sharks in the Galápagos, and gone undercover into mind-control cults.

Hurwitz grew up in the Bay Area. While completing a BA from Harvard ('95) and a master's from Trinity College, Oxford in Shakespearean tragedy ('96), he wrote his first novel. He was the undergraduate scholar-athlete of the year at Harvard for his pole-vaulting exploits, and played college soccer in England, where he was a Knox fellow. He now lives in L.A. where he continues to play soccer, frequently injuring himself. Feel free to email him at [e-mail]

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome Suspense and Twists, July 31, 2009

By 

Mel Odom (Moore, OK USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Trust No One (Hardcover)

Do NOT start Gregg Hurwitz's new novel Trust No One at the end of a long day when you have to get back up early the next morning. This is the only warning you get.

Hurwitz is a good writer, dependable for action and intrigue. I've read his novels and his comic book and I always find myself flipping through the pages till I reach the end of whatever story he's spieling. I loved last year's offering, The Crime Writer, which, like Trust No One, is a stand-alone novel. His Tim Rackley books are great, but I really enjoy the way Hurwitz can twist characters and plots till you're not sure who's doing what to whom. Or sometime what's really at stake.

In this book, there are a lot of things at stake. The main character gets woken up in the middle of the night by a Secret Service team that yanks him away and doesn't give him a choice. He doesn't know what's going on, and the event immediately reminds him of the last time he crossed paths with the Secret Service.

Nineteen years ago, at the tender age of seventeen, Nick Horrigan was forced to leave town or be arrested for the murder of his stepfather, a decorated Secret Service agent. Nick's own father was irresponsible and left the family, but Nick idolized him anyway. In a few short chapters, though, Hurwitz makes us care a lot about his stepfather.

Past and present converge in an explosive encounter that leaves one man dead, and with Nick delivering the murder weapon. The action picks up even from this breathtaking beginning and hammered me to the pages. The first night I admit that I started the book late. I should have known better. I read until I went blind that night, simply couldn't make out any of the words on the page anymore.

I got up the next morning and marched through the rest of the book without breaking stride. Hurwitz has created a thoroughly enjoyable potboiler involving powerful politics played out against a lethal background of secrets. There are a lot of twists and turns in the book, and every time I seemed to figure an event out, or get to where I could predict how a character would act, Hurwitz threw another curveball into the mix. I enjoyed the relationship Nick has with his mother, her new husband, and her stepdaughter. I especially liked the scene with Induma, his ex-girlfriend.

Hurwitz writes really tight, driving dialogue and I found myself blistering through the scenes at a frantic pace. With the first-person narrative, he's able to delve deeply into the characters and make me feel like I was carrying Nick Horrigan's burden part of the way with him, and I rooted for the character from page one.

So, do pick this book up for sheer entertainment, but do block out the time to read it. Hurwitz grabs you by the throat with this one, and he doesn't let go till he's finished with you.

18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Looney Tunes, March 9, 2009

By 

Gary Griffiths (Los Altos Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Trust No One (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

OK, lot's of strong reviews on this one, but at the risk of alienating some fans, Gregg Hurwitz's "Trust No One" falls short on several levels - yet another run of the mill government conspiracy theory fantasy lacking depth, substance, and credibility. But to give credit where due, Hurwitz keeps a brisk pace, action trumping intellect, and if the political rants are simple minded and stereotyped, the author at least pulls a couple well-telegraphed twists to maintain some semblance of ambiguity.

Nick Horrigan is a benign character - a thirty-something recently-resigned worker for a non-profit, barely making enough to keep the Cartoon Network running on his cable TV. But Nick's docile life overdoses on adrenaline when a bunch of SWAT thugs bust into his apartment, hauling him off to a SoCal nuclear plant to defuse a terrorist who will only speak to Nick. Nick has no idea who this politically correctly-named "Mike Milligan" terrorist is, but before LA is reduced to a Chernobyl-like waste land, Nick's made Mike's connection to his Secret Service step dad, murdered nearly two decades earlier under circumstances for which Nick has since blamed himself. Predictably, Nick finds himself tangled in a Byzantine hodgepodge of politics and conspiracy, with the help of a bum and his former girlfriend fending off the best of the elite secret operatives of the United States has to offer.

Hurwitz's tale of Nick's quest to find the truth of his step dad's demise suffers from thinly drawn characters and pedestrian prose ("The silence was what told me I had finished talking." That, and your lips not moving, I guess). But mainly, it takes total suspension of belief to buy the preposterous chain of events, and the ease in which a social worker instantly transforms to a steely eyed operative, outsmarting Senators and Presidents and multiple three-letter agencies, bringing the mighty and powerful to their knees. The same black helicopter crowd that believes the same government that can't run a railroad or a Post Office can pull off ridiculously convoluted covers-ups, while apparently having no problem accepting that a kid and his drunken homeless buddy can outmaneuver the evil feds.

A couple hundred pages in, Nick observes, "You try getting wrapped up in a government conspiracy. It can wear a person down." Exactly.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vroman's Bookstore Bus Author to the LA Festival of Books, August 24, 2009

By 

Mandu the Cat (Incline Village, NV USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trust No One (Hardcover)

I rode on the Vroman's Bookstore bus to the L.A. Festival of Books and author Gregg Hurwitz was on our bus. I had never heard of him nor had I read any of his books. However, he was so engaging on the way over that I thought about giving his book a try. I went to the booth of another independent bookstore, Book'em Mysteries in South Pasadena, who was at the festival and looked around for his already published books; I didn't purchase one. Then I proceeded to my author's panel, mysteries, and Mr. Hurwitz was at this panel. Again, he was engaging, entertaining and a lot of fun to listen to. I was anxious for Trust No One to come out. When it came out and I purchased it, I somehow had lost the enthusiasm and pursued other books in my pile. I just returned from a quick trip to LA this past weekend (it is now August) and before I left I realized I couldn't go without a book thus Trust No One got slipped into my trusty messenger bag. I started it on the flight down (a two plane trip) and I was totally enthralled in this book from the moment I started it! It was a terrific ride and one I would highly recommend especially if you haven't read anything by this author. You absolutely, positively won't be disappointed. I think I will now go and investigate his backlist and see what other page turner is in store for me -- I do have another plane trip coming in the very near future. Enjoy!