I was attracted to this excellent and intelligent thriller by its intriguing name. I was certainly rewarded for my curiosity. A gripping story of corruption and intrigue set in Yemen and written by an author whose background equips him to provide unique insights. ( )

Set in Yemen, THE ABRUPT PHYSICS OF DYING is an eco-thriller from an author who writes about the issues explored with authority and a vivid sense of place.

Claymore Straker is a South-African born engineer, working on environmental approval reports for a major oil company in Yemen, a country teetering on the brink of civil war. Held up, with his local Muslim driver, at gunpoint by a local armed militia group, Straker is forced to investigate the potential of environmental contamination in a village close to oil fields. Children are dying, mothers are miscarrying, and the locals are convinced it's something to do with Petro-Tex, who are equally keen to cover up any potential involvement. Which puts Straker in a very difficult position as he feels very responsible for his friend and driver, held hostage until he checks the locals claims, and yet he earns his living from Petro-Tex work, who aren't pleased at his digging.

Given that THE ABRUPT PHYSICS OF DYING is a thriller there is much here that we take for granted. Straker's borderline super-human, able to withstand major beatings, threats, being jerked around, and having to deal with idiots. There's a beautiful love / sex interest - in this case the enigmatic French journalist who may / may not be on the side of Straker and good. There's the requisite huge multinational company with the self-serving employees and a desire to make money and increase their own power, regardless of any impact they may have. There's also a local terrorist / extremist group who, in this case, have come about as a result of the injustice done to them and their country. And as you'd expect, there are a lot of guns, much yelling, threat and danger everywhere and lot of rushing around the desert.

It's a refreshing change, however, to find considerable black and white in the motivations and behaviour of the so called extremists. Their land plundered, their people dying, this novel conveys the fine line between defender and antagonist. Their methodologies might seem barbaric, but in the event that you're left with few choices in the face of overwhelming power and wealth, there's lots of instances where one person's freedom fighter is another person's extremist.

It's a measure of the wonderfully descriptive style of writing that THE ABRUPT PHYSICS OF DYING works as well as it does. The sense of place, and the way that the climate, the landscape and the people all combine within a location very foreign to that which many of us live in is evocative. Having said that, particularly in the middle of the novel, some culling of the repetition in those descriptive passages, and of the science explanations, wouldn't go astray as it does bog things down a little.

Work through those sections though and you're left with an interesting double act. A thriller which entertains, leaving much for you to think about after you've put the book down.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-abrupt-physics-dying-paul-e-hardis... ( )

The Abrupt Physics of Dying
By Paul E. Hardisty
Orenda Books
978-1910633052
£8.99, 429 pages

The Abrupt Physics of Dying wastes no time. The debut thriller from Paul E. Hardisty, the first in a planned series, opens on page one with Kalashnikovs, kidnapping and grand theft auto. Our hero Claymore Straker has an appropriately shady past but is currently a hydrologist for Petro-Tex, an international oil company, where he is responsible for environmental impact. See? Dangerous territory already, even before the men with the guns show up. Straker finds himself in the middle of a lethal feud between the tribes, the Yemeni government and global business interests (aka money). When the Bedouin begin to fall ill, a shadowing sheik by the name of Al Shams recruits (aka blackmails) Straker to get to the truth of the matter at the unholy confluence of oil and water.

Straker reminds me of the Downey version of Sherlock Holmes crossed with Erin Brockovich. He visualizes beforehand what he needs to do in the action sequences; he’s smart, unconventional and a bit of a smart ass. Abrupt Physics is not your average thriller. There’s history and a good deal of philosophy, the modern tension between religion and the secular, between the Arab tribes,

“The company,’ spat Al Shams. ‘Petro-Tex. You speak as if this thing were human, one of Allah’s creations. It is not. It is inanimate, soulless, not of this world. It exists for one purpose only, as we both know…To get the oil that lies beneath this land. Our land. It will do anything to get it. It will pay people like you whatever it must to placate the villagers, to assuage the regulators.”

and Petro-Tex, as well as Straker himself,

“Clay forced a laugh, coughed, looked across the fire at Abdulkader. The man’s stoic fatalism – that granitic belief in a higher power – was something he had never understood. Empirically, it made no sense. Observation denied it. And yet envy flooded through him now, raw, thirsty, an insatiable dark negative that seemed to pull in everything around him, leaving him standing alone and naked, the last torn strips of his logic hanging like rags from his frame.”

Hardisty’s descriptions of the Empty Quarter are well- and closely observed.

“The wadi cut down through the plateau of softer rocks, shales and marls, down to the hard limestone that formed the base of the first scarp...The wadi sides steepened...the stratified, fractured face of time where a hundred millennia, the whole of human history, lay compressed into a single layer – a hand span’s width of lithified sand grains, quartz and plagioclase from a beach on a lonely stretch of coastline that once basked under clear skies, the crystalline blue of the shallows teeming with freakish new life, all now extinct.”

The story and setting remind me of Taylor Stevens’ series of thrillers starring Vanessa Michael Monroe: international intrigue, sophisticated treatment of non-western cultures – which means neither demonized nor romanticized, abundant gray areas where there are no simple choices, and peopled with the sorts of psychopaths addicted to adrenaline. The science reminds me of Patricia Cornwell’s Scarpetta novels. All of these similarities are good things but Abrupt Physics is not derivative. This is a modern treatment of a centuries-old conflict between indigenous peoples and usurpers bent on exploitation, us and them.

On the down side, some of the bad guys are stereotypes, even intermittently cartoonish, and Hardisty needs to work on his sex scenes – especially word choice. Tone down some of the melodrama and I think he’s got a good thing going on here. Since practice makes better, I’m looking forward to future installments in the series.

The reluctant warrior trope is oft-used but that’s because it speaks to us. The repentant sinner who has cleaned up his act, forced by circumstances to resurrect his inner bad guy, but this time uses his powers for good. The concept doesn’t need to be original but the treatment does. And it is. ( )

The Abrupt Physics of Dying – Stunning Debut Thriller

The Abrupt Physics of Dying is the stunning debut thriller from Canadian writer Paul E. Hardisty the debut book for new publisher Orenda Books. Orenda Books is on a winner with this excellent thriller, the name may seem long and off putting but like the publisher it is not as daunting as it seems. This is a well written pulsating read diving head long in to the dangerous world of Middle Eastern Politics, religion, oil and western oil companies. From the beginning to the end you are left wondering on who can be trusted to tell the truth and will the corruption that seems endemic be able to block the truth ever coming out.

Claymore Straker is an ex-South African paratrooper who is trying to escape his violent past who is now working as an engineer in the petroleum industry out in the dangerous lands of Yemen. Straker and his driver Abdulkader are kidnapped at gun point and taken to meet Al Shams, according to the government a terrorist. Straker is told that is he wants to save Abdulkader’s life then he needs to find out what is causing the mysterious illness that is affecting the village of Al Urush slowly killing the children and women.

As Straker starts his investigations to find what is causing the illnesses he finds himself caught between the ruthlessness of the Petroleum Company, the various factions of Yemenis and their various armies and those who control the oil. As Yemen descends in to civil war the more dangerous it becomes for Straker, the closer he gets to the truth the more at risk he becomes. He finds himself branded a murderer and is wanted by the CIA and wanted dead by his former colleagues at the Petroleum Company.

As Straker collects the evidence and sees the villagers die he knows that many lives depend on him and what he discovers. He also realises that it will be a race against time and the company to get the truth out and that he will expose himself and those around him to a certain death. What he does learn is nothing is what it seems and that Yemen and the Middle East is an ancient and unforgiving place a place he is not sure he can escape and tell people what is happening there.

This is an exceptional debut thriller that is well written the prose clear and crisp the voice is clear and authentic, which is tense, moving and grabs you by the throat. This really is a page turning thriller that at the same time is thought provoking and challenges our love and need for oil. The Abrupt Physics of Dying also introduces to a new hero in Claymore Straker who we are promised will return and will be interesting to see how this character develops and can he challenge Bond and Bourne.

The Abrupt Physics of Dying by Paul E. Hardisty is a fantastic debut thriller that will blow your socks off with a traffic pace that you will not regret reading. Claymore Straker is an intelligent ex-soldier fighting demons who will become our new hero. ( )