GREAT READS

Await Your Reply

Dan Chaon.

Await Your Reply is the best thriller that I've read in a long time.  The novel's plot twists between three distinct stories.  Miles Cheshire is searching for his troubled twin brother, Hayden - a master of disguise and deception who has led Miles on a decade-long chase across the country.  Lucy Lattimore, a recent orphan at age 18, sneaks away from her small town with her sophisticated history professor, George Orson.  And Ryan Schuyler, who learns the amazing truth of his real parents, and simply walks away from his life at Northwestern University in Chicago.  These are three seemingly separate plots, but as the story unfolds, the reader begins to pick up on clues that link them together.  As the pages turn the reader is drawn into the story, and into each of the characters.  Await Your Reply is partly a story about identity theft in our increasingly connected electronic world, and just how easy it is to slip into the life of a total stranger.  More than that, it's a story about how people create their identities, and how these personas might not be quite as strong as one might think.  Chaon's writing is well crafted, and well paced.  The story unwinds in small details and scenes, but never becomes boring.  As the action of the novel builds, and connections start to be made, the reader gets a clearer and clearer picture of what has been happening the entire time.  I finished reading it in just a few days, and almost wanted to immediately start again on page 1, to see what I had missed the first time through.  If you like contemporary thriller and mystery authors like Harlan Coben, Stieg Larsson, and Laura Lippman, then you'll love Await Your Reply.

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