[Review] Fatal Option by Chris Beakey

On the coldest night of the year, Stephen Porter is pulled from a restless sleep by a midnight phone call. His 17-year-old daughter Sara is stranded in a blizzard near the top of a mountain beyond their suburban home. She's terrified and unable to stop crying as she begs him to come to her rescue.
Unfortunately Stephen went to bed just an hour before after a night of binge drinking. With his blurred vision and unsteady balance he knows it’s dangerously irresponsible to get behind the wheel. But he heads out into the snowstorm to bring Sara home.
High school teacher Kieran O’Shea is also behind the wheel, searching for his autistic younger brother Aidan, who is wandering aimlessly through the storm on that same mountain. Kieran is also terrified—of the voices in his mind, of the possibility that Aidan will be taken from him, and of the certainty that he will soon be arrested for murdering three women.
In a matter of minutes Stephen will encounter Kieran and drive headlong into a collision that will force him to unlock the secret of his wife’s death, avoid prosecution, and protect his children from violence that hits all too close to home.

Summary & Cover taken from GoodReads.com

Length: 304 pages (Hardcover)

Source: Review Copy from Publisher

Series: N/A

Genre: Thriller

Publication Date: February 21st 2017 by Post Hill Press

ADD TO GOODREADS

I've been having some personal issues here so I've had to step back from the blog for a couple weeks until things were sorted out, as a result I'm a bit behind in a few reviews so now I'm playing catch up and Fatal Option was the first one on deck.
Chris Beakey had me from page one. I am not kidding. I thought that it might take me a bit of time to get back into the rhythm of reading again but as it turns out all I needed was the right book. Add in the cold rainy day that I spent reading it, it was just what the doctor ordered. What a thing to say about a thriller right?
This was very much a cat and mouse type thriller. We have our protagonist, Stephen. Widower. Drunk. Father. Fool. He's all of these things and more...but there was a grace about him. I found him flawed but a great character and he sure knew how to play the cat and mouse game the "bad guy" tangled him up in and he did it very well. His daughter is the one who sets him on the course of the events in the book on the worst blizzard of the year but I learned very quickly that with this thriller that all is not how it seems.
In Fatal Options, the characters, the events the motivations of each person appeared to be very clear but, I learned as I read on that not all was as it appeared. It reminded me of a tangle of knots. Just as I thought I was finally beginning to understand where the story was going I was flipped, spun around. It was like playing pin the tale on the donkey and I loved it. It was such a surprise to be surprised and a relief. Where I thought the story was going never ended up being what I thought it would.
This was an emotional rollercoaster of a read. I went into this book with my mind made up about certain characters but found by the end of it that I had been led astray by my presumptions. There's a lot of death in this book, sadness, grief and guilt were all such strong feelings I felt on behalf of the characters made me feel as if the emotions themselves were characters in the story made flesh.
This was haunting and heart pounding. Exciting and gut clenching and an all around dark yet fun read for me as a thriller lover. I thought that it was refreshingly well written told with a unique voice and one that I can't wait to hear more from. Chris Beakey left me wanting more and I can't wait to see what this exciting author has next.
I highly recommend thriller fans and fans of heart pounding plot twists to give this book a read as soon as possible. It's not one to be missed.