City of Windows

by Robert Pobi

Overview

"City of Windows is moving, breathtaking—a great entertainment." —The Wall Street Journal

“A tough, wise, knowing narrative voice, a great plot, a great setting, and even better characters — I loved this.” —Lee Child, New York Times bestselling author

In the tradition of Jeffery Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme and David Baldacci’s Amos Decker, Robert Pobi's City of Windows introduces Lucas Page, a brilliant, reluctant investigator, matching wits with a skilled, invisible killer

During the worst blizzard in memory, an FBI agent in a moving SUV in New York City is killed by a nearly impossible sniper shot. Unable to pinpoint where the shot came from, as the storm rapidly wipes out evidence, the agent-in-charge Brett Kehoe turns to the one man who might be able to help them—former FBI agent Lucas Page.

Page, a university professor and bestselling author, left the FBI years ago after a tragic event robbed him of a leg, an arm, an eye, and the willingness to continue. But he has an amazing ability to read a crime scene, figure out angles and trajectories in his head, and he might be the only one to be able to find the sniper’s nest. With a new wife and family, Lucas Page has no interest in helping the FBI—except for the fact that the victim was his former partner.

Agreeing to help for his partner’s sake, Page finds himself hunting a killer with an unknown agenda and amazing sniper skills in the worst of conditions. And his partner’s murder is only the first in a series of meticulously planned murders carried out with all-but-impossible sniper shots. The only thing connecting the deaths is that the victims are all with law enforcement—that is until Page’s own family becomes a target.

To identify and hunt down this ruthless, seemingly unstoppable killer, Page must discover what hidden past connects the victims before he himself loses all that is dear to him.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250293947
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/06/2019
Series:	Lucas Page Series , #1
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Robert Pobi is the author of several novels, including the international bestseller Bloodman and Harvest, though City of Windows is his first thriller. He lives in Canada.

Editorial Reviews

★ 06/10/2019

Brilliant astrophysicist Lucas Page, the distinctive hero of this outstanding series launch from Pobi (American Woman), used to be an FBI agent who could survey a crime scene and automatically convert the topography to geometric forms and numbers. This ability would allow him, for example, to pinpoint the origin of a gunshot in the middle of a city. Then the loss of a leg, an arm, and an eye in a shoot-out put an end to his FBI career and his first marriage, but his mental acuity remained. Ten years later, Lucas teaches at Columbia University and writes books; he and his second wife are raising five foster children. When Lucas’s former FBI partner, Doug Hartke, is fatally shot by a sniper while driving in Midtown Manhattan, he reluctantly agrees to help FBI special agent Brett Kehoe track down the culprit. Lucas quickly determines the sniper’s rooftop location, but it was a close to impossible shot, “like trying to thread a needle while riding a mechanical bull set to Motörhead.” More shootings occur, and the victims’ only connections are law enforcement careers. The tense plot is balanced by the prickly Lucas’s cerebral investigating skills. This promises to be Pobi’s breakout thriller. Agent: Jill Marr, Sandra Dijkstra Literary. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"Exceptional." —Associated Press

"A high-voltage thriller." —Fredricksburg Freelance Star

"Pobi superbly probes the depths of all his characters, but is especially masterful in his creation of the way Page can break down the logistics of any crime scene and the ESP-like abilities of Page's handler, Special Agent Whitaker." —Shelf Awareness

"Outstanding...the tense plot is balanced by the prickly Lucas's cerebral investigating skills." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"[City of Windows] is perfectly and exquisitely paced and plotted. Pobi is merciless. There is simply no good place to stop reading and catch a breath." —Bookreporter

"Relentless pacing, tight plotting, and a brainy, idiosyncratic new hero make this one a winner." —Kirkus Reviews

"Pobi’s rocket-fueled plot and strong voice make this a can’t-miss hit." —Library Journal

“A stunner. One of the most impressive, compelling thrillers I’ve read in a long while. The plot moves at bullet velocity. The writing has an electric surge. Robert Pobi delivers a fresh, exciting new voice to thriller fiction.” —David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of Murder As a Fine Art and First Blood: Rambo

"City of Windows is that rarest of gems—a page-turner painted with soaring prose that makes you want to read every sentence twice. In Dr. Lucas Page, Robert Pobi has created a unique and modern protagonist, as irascible as he is brilliant. He’ll be back and so will I.” —Gregg Hurwitz, New York Times bestselling author of Orphan X

"I don't have space to list the many things that are done expertly in City of Windows. Just read it and start watching for Robert Pobi's next book." —Thomas Perry, Edgar award-winning and New York Times bestselling author

"Robert Pobi has written a winner with City of Windows, a novel that should establish him as an authentic, distinctive and entertaining new voice in crime fiction." —John Lescroart, New York Times bestselling author of The Rule of Law

From the Publisher

2019-05-13
The FBI brings in astrophysicist, amputee, and former agent Dr. Lucas Page when a sniper takes aim in the middle of a New York blizzard.

It's almost Christmas, and Columbia professor Lucas Page is looking forward to getting away from his students and spending a couple of weeks with his wife, Erin, a pediatric surgeon, and their four, soon to be five, adoptive children. It's not to be. A sniper has killed Lucas' old FBI partner, Doug Hartke, and Special Agent in Charge Brett Kehoe asks Lucas to use his unusual talent to tell him where the shot came from. It's been a decade since the incident that nearly killed Lucas and cost him an arm, a leg, and an eye, but he can still pull off what, to others, seems like an impossible trick: In a blink, he can see the city as a "matrix of interconnected digits, a mosaic of numbers that stretched to the horizon." It's a singular talent that makes him a hot commodity in what turns out to be a doozy of a case. After all, making the shot that killed Doug Hartke "would be like trying to thread a needle while riding a mechanical bull set to Motörhead." The eerily talented sniper continues to take out cops at an inhuman pace, and the FBI has a suspect, but Lucas doesn't believe they've got the right guy and enlists a few of his sharpest students to help him find a connection between the victims. The cat-and-mouse game that follows takes Lucas to his limits and beyond and puts his family firmly in the crosshairs. Investing in Dr. Lucas Page and his extraordinary family is ridiculously easy, and, crankiness aside, he has a solid core of decency that shines through. Lucas is surrounded by genuinely interesting supporting characters, such as his de facto partner Agent Whitaker, who has a preternatural talent for anticipating what Lucas is thinking, and Dingo, a fellow amputee and former BBC combat photographer who lives over the Pages' garage. Keep an eye out for a heart-pounding sequence involving Dingo and an actual broadsword. Pobi's (American Woman, 2014, etc.) keen attention to the mechanics and challenges involved in having multiple prostheses is a plus, although readers will have to wait to find out more about the incident that caused Lucas' life-altering injuries.

Relentless pacing, tight plotting, and a brainy, idiosyncratic new hero make this one a winner.

Kirkus Reviews