Life or Death

by Michael Robotham

Overview

Why would a man serving a long prison sentence escape the day before he's due to be released? Audie Palmer has spent ten years in a Texas prison after pleading guilty to a robbery in which four people died and seven million dollars went missing. During that time he has suffered repeated beatings, stabbings and threats by inmates and guards, all desperate to answer the same question: where's the money?

On the day before Audie is due to be released, he suddenly vanishes. Now everybody is searching for him -- the police, FBI, gangsters and other powerful figures -- but Audie isn't running to save his own life. Instead, he's trying to save someone else's.

Michael Robotham has created the ultimate underdog hero, an honorable criminal shrouded in mystery and ready to lead readers on a remarkable chase.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316252041
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	03/10/2015
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
File size:	766 KB

About the Author

Michael Robotham has been an investigative journalist in Britain, Australia and the US. One of world's most acclaimed authors of thriller fiction, he lives in Sydney with his wife and three daughters.

What People are Saying About This

Stephen King

Life or Death is a nerve-shredding thriller with the heart and soul so often missing from lesser crime and suspense novels.
I couldn't stop reading, yet I didn't want Audie's story to end. Robotham is an absolute master. --Stephen King

Steve Berry

A pitch perfect plot with a stunning twist that involves a sheep in wolf's clothing. Talk about topsy turvy --- but it works — big time. --Steve Berry, author of The Lincoln Myth and The Jefferson Key

Lee Child

I love this guy's books. Try Life or Death and you'll see why.

Editorial Reviews

Moss [Webster] is your real boon companion on this manhunt. A big bruiser, he may not be as subtle a thinker as Agent Furness or as complicated a character as Audie, but he's emotionally involved in Audie's fate and morally conflicted about his own role in determining it. Besides, his warm voice, thick with country honey, is the one you want to hear.

The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio

Michael Robotham is the real deal.

David Baldacci

I love this guy's books. Try Life or Death and you'll see why.

Lee Child

John Chancer’s narration skills keep the bullets whizzing in this on-the-run audiobook thriller. Chancer’s modulation and timing add vocal drama to the action—whether it’s a prison break, hand-to-hand combat, a shoot-out, or someone being smacked with a shovel…The production is paced so that each cliff-hanger unravels just as the next one is revealed, guaranteeing that you won’t hit the pause button until the full story is told.”

AudioFile

Robotham creates fascinating characters and gives them wonderful dialogue.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Harry Levins

A pitch perfect plot with a stunning twist that involves a sheep in wolf's clothing. Talk about topsy turvy —- but it works —- big time.

author of The Lincoln Myth and The Jefferson Key Steve Berry

Robotham is a first-class storyteller.

Associated Press

Highly original…In a preface Robotham tells us this is ‘the book that I was meant to write.’ He could be right.”

Literary Review

Life or Death is a nerve-shredding thriller with the heart and soul so often missing from lesser crime and suspense novels. I couldn't stop reading, yet I didn't want Audie's story to end. Robotham is an absolute master.

Stephen King

Superbly exciting thriller…Beautifully written and full of poignancy.”

Sunday Mirror (UK)

Robotham has a talent for creating fascinating and complex characters, and Audie Palmer may be his best yet.

Booklist (starred review)

One of the best thrillers you will read this year.”

Financial Times (London)

"Life or Death is a nerve-shredding thriller with the heart and soul so often missing from lesser crime and suspense novels. I couldn’t stop reading, yet I didn’t want Audie’s story to end.”

#1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King

"I love this guy's books. Try Life or Death and you'll see why."—Lee Child

"Life or Death is a nerve-shredding thriller with the heart and soul so often missing from lesser crime and suspense novels. I couldn't stop reading, yet I didn't want Audie's story to end. Robotham is an absolute master."—Stephen King

"It has one of the great plots of the year...constantly unfolding and fabulously revelatory. It reads so smoothly it will make you forget about any turbulence you may encounter while aloft or about the traffic outside your minivan in the carpool lane. This is a great chase novel. We should celebrate it."—Alan Cheuse, The Dallas Morning News

"A pitch perfect plot with a stunning twist that involves a sheep in wolf's clothing. Talk about topsy turvy — but it works — big time."—Steve Berry, author of The Lincoln Myth and The Jefferson Key

"Robotham creates fascinating characters and gives them wonderful dialogue."—Harry Levins, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Robotham has a talent for creating fascinating and complex characters, and Audie Palmer may be his best yet."—Booklist (starred review)

[A] prison-break tale with a twist . . . The writing is top-notch . . . Plenty of edge-of-the-seat excitement, forcing readers to frantically turn the pages to find out how all these different strands intersect. Robotham's skill as a writer remains undeniable: He offers memorable characters caught up in an irresistible story."—Kirkus Reviews

"Michael Robotham is the real deal."—David Baldacci

"Robotham is a first-class storyteller."—Associated Press

From the Publisher

2014-12-08
Australian novelist Robotham travels to Texas for this prison-break tale with a twist.Audie Palmer, who admitted his involvement in the infamous Dreyfus County, Texas, armored security truck robbery, escaped from prison with only one day remaining on his sentence. Audie pleaded guilty to helping steal $7 million—money that's never been recovered. But why did he disappear the day before his parole was to begin? That's the question on the minds of everyone, from diminutive FBI Special Agent Desiree Furness to his best prison buddy, Moss. Soon after Audie runs, everyone involved in his case, from the former prosecutor to a deputy who is now the sheriff, is pulling out the stops to find him, and it's obvious they'd prefer him dead rather than alive. Robotham generously shares information about the villains with readers, so there's little suspense there. However, the back story, skillfully interwoven with the search for Audie, provides plenty of edge-of-the-seat excitement, forcing readers to frantically turn the pages to find out how all these different strands intersect. Robotham's skill as a writer remains undeniable: He offers memorable characters caught up in an irresistible story. But the Aussie writer's choice of Texas as his setting is bound to ruffle some feathers since he portrays the state as uniformly and relentlessly corrupt, its citizens as the dregs of society. "Texas only executes people on death row, not when they're brain-dead because it might mean culling most of their politicians," reads one passage. And while the writing is top-notch, albeit inflammatory in places, the finished product is also puzzling in that the novelist and his editorial team populated the book with many British expressions foreign to the setting, from calling a woman's bangs a "fringe" to terming a flophouse a "doss house" to having a very Southern character refer to lines in a bank as "queues." Terrific storytelling that won't win Robotham many friends in the Lone Star State.

Kirkus Reviews