"Nemesis” by Catherine Coulter – No Rest for the Righteous

These days new thrillers hit the shelves every day by the dozens, and while some of them are certainly great, it saturates the genre with re-hashed plots and devices.

There always comes a point where a genre needs some creativity, some new life to shake things up... and that's precisely what Catherine Coulter does in one of her latest novels, Nemesis, a thriller featuring both Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich, FBI agents.

In this one, the plot is a rather intricate and complicated one. Lacey Sherlock, while waiting in line at the JFK airport, discovers that FBI agents never rest as a seemingly deranged lunatic threatens to throw a grenade into the crowd. As she defuses that situation, a bomb goes off in St. Patrick's Cathedral.

With her life having taken a sudden and new direction, Sherlock follows suit and from that moment on is dragged into a terrorism investigation, one that starts small and yet spans the entire globe. She quickly becomes an important target for the terrorists and finds herself assailed by assassins as she tries to put an end to the conspiracy.

At the same time, Dillon Savich has his own little party going, but of a rather different nature. His case is that of a serial killer, a man who is only described by his uncanny resemblance to Hollywood's Dracula.

To make things just a tad more interesting, Savich comes to the conclusion Wicca is at the heart of it all. Not being left out, Savich too becomes a target of his killer... and eventually, the two cases collide, paving the way for some rather strange circumstances.

So as you can likely tell right away, this isn't your average three-note thriller that will be forgotten as soon as it is finished. While at first glance it might seem like Coulter took on more than she could chew by making such a grand, complex and multilayered story, it all ends up working out quite well.

Both of the cases draw your interest for different reasons, and even though it is clear that these protagonists aren't going to bite the dust, we still feel fear and insecurity for them as they are under constant threat. It could even be said that Coulter manages to create an uncertainty about them.

Things move along rather quickly as you can imagine, with one event happening on top of the other, twists and turns that barely give you any time to react before the next one comes along. The action unfolds at a breakneck speed and there are plenty of adrenaline-pumping moments.

Once the story picks up its momentum the book is very hard to put down, being carried by its charismatic characters, tense action and snappy dialogue. Of course, all of this leaves little time for character development, but let's face it, that's not what we read thrillers for.

In the end, Nemesis manages to be a very welcome and exciting breath of fresh air into the genre, with its complex and multilayered story that will surprise you time and time again, and action that will make you devour it in one sitting.

If you want a thriller that will last in your memory, an exciting story you'll keep coming back to, then this is a book you'll definitely want to read.

---

Catherine Coulter Personal site Catherine Coulter is an American author, born all the way back in 1942 during the Second World War. Throughout her career as a writer she always had a penchant for romance novels, whether they be presented in the form of thrillers or even historical fiction. Some of her best works include Bombshell and The Cove.