The Escape Artist by Brad Meltzer

Author: Brad Meltzer
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Date of publication: March 2018

Two hours outside of Washington, DC is the mortuary for the U.S. government's most top-secret and high profile cases. America's most important funeral home. To work there, mortician Jim "Zig" Zwicharowski has one rule: never let a case get personal. But when a new body arrives--of young female sergeant Nola Brown, who was a childhood friend of Zig's daughter--Zig can't help himself. Looking closely at Nola's body, he realizes immediately: this isn't Nola. Indeed, his daughter's friend is still alive. And on the run. Zig's discovery reveals a sleight of hand being played at the highest levels of power--and traces back through history to a man named Harry Houdini. "Nola, you were right. Keep running."

I have been searching for a truly "thrilling" thriller.  I was hoping to find it in The Escape Artist, but sadly, I am still searching after finishing it.  For the most part, I did enjoy the book, but I would classify it as more of a mystery than a thriller.  

I did like Nola's character.  In flashbacks, we get to see her formative years and it's not a big surprise she ended up like she did. I found myself applauding her in the end.  I didn't care too much for Zig though.  He kept making dumb decisions for the wrong reasons. I'm not too sure he is someone I would want to read about in a future book.  But give me some more Nola in a book and I'd pick it up.

The big twist was predicable about half way though the book.  For me, it wasn't very shocking. Overall, it's a fairly straight forward mystery.  But, it does suffer from too many convenient coincidences.   This is the first book that I have read by this author, so I have nothing else to compare it to.  I'll probably give him a try again in the future.