"The Breaker" by Nick Petrie; Putnam (400 pages, $27)
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A major strength of Nick Petrie’s series about former Marine Peter Ash is how his character deals with — and moves past — his post-traumatic claustrophobia, the “white static” that has compelled him to sleep outside and be on the move. Petrie’s insightful exploration of the complicated and compassionate Peter, who had tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, has fueled fast-paced thrillers that maintain a high note of action while keeping attention on the characters.
“The Breaker,” Petrie’s sixth novel, finds Peter reaching a milestone. He’s now able to frequently sleep indoors and his wanderlust has leveled off as he has found a home in Milwaukee with his longtime girlfriend, June Cassidy, an investigative reporter. “The war still lived inside him, as it always would, but the static had softened and the tightness behind his eyes had begun to ease,” writes Petrie.
But Peter is still a man of action who needs to be “useful.” So it’s no surprise that Peter will interrupt his coffee with June and his friend Lewis near the Milwaukee Public Market to take after a bearded “weird-looking dude” he spots carrying a rifle, hoping to thwart any violence. Peter doesn’t hesitate to put the lives of others ahead of his own, even though he is wanted by the FBI for a murder he didn’t commit.
The adrenaline-laden plot leads Peter to a young woman technology genius named Spark, the ruthless mogul Vincent Holloway and a chilling henchman. Peter is offered an incentive to get involved: Stop Holloway from launching “radical emerging” technology and his arrest warrant will disappear. Advanced, “black-op” technologies are “the new arms race,” Peter is told.
Petrie invests “The Breaker” with dual investigation threads with Peter and Lewis supplying break-neck energy while June shows that being an investigative reporter can be just as exciting.
Petrie continues to show his affinity with melding action and character in “The Breaker.”
