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Rules of Deception | 
 enlarge | Author: Christopher Reich
Creator: Paul Michael
Publisher: Random House Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $39.95
Buy Used: $6.60
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Rating:  70 reviews
Sales Rank: 644543
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Abridged
Number Of Items: 12
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 5.8 x 4.9 x 1.2
ISBN: 0739358006
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780739358009
ASIN: 0739358006
Publication Date: July 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Audio CDs, Ex Public Library in hard plastic protective case (with stickers). All used audio book are guaranteed for good sound quality or your money back. Thank you. Shipped promptly.
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Amazon.com Review
Lee Child on Rules of Deception
Lee Child has crafted one of literature's most popular anti-heroes in the form of Jack Reacher, the iconic ex-military policeman of his bestselling novels. The author of Nothing to Lose talks about what makes a good thriller -- and why Christopher Reich is a novelist worthy of a gold medal.
 I discovered Christopher Reich exactly ten years ago. His first book came out around the same time my second book was published. The modest prosperity that ones first book deal brings allowed me to pick up hardcovers that caught my eye. And Numbered Account caught my eye. And it lived up to its promise. It was fast, fresh, glossy, and very exciting. I thought: Reich is a keeper.
And then he got better. It was always clear that he had talent to burn, but he chose to accompany it with a real work ethic. His second, third and fourth books built and built until the release of the next one was an event to be anticipated. (And right there is my only complaint: Reich doesnt write fast enough.)
His fifth book - The Patriot's Club - was a real achievement. It was a slam-dunk winner of the International Thriller Writers first annual Best Novel award. Awards are often awkward. Theres usually a measure of grumbling, because often people dont agree with the choice of winner. But not a word was heard against "The Patriots Club." In fact nothing was heard, because the applause was too loud.
So I was really looking forward to Rules of Deception. I got an advance copy. I cracked it open. I started reading. Mostly I read like any other reader, but a small part of me reads like a writer. I think all writers experience the same thing. We sense things between the lines, especially energy and inspiration.
And ambition.
Rules of Deception starts with a short prologue, and then the first chapter introduces Jonathan Ransom, the main character. Two pages, and then nine pages. The prologue is a teaser. It baits the hook. Its a two-page masterpiece. Its intriguing, and then its really intriguing. It promises big things ahead. Then chapter one introduces the guy whos going to have to deal with them. And why, indirectly.
Eleven pages. The reader in me wanted to race ahead. But the writer in me had to pause a moment. Because between the lines I was sensing something. Maybe because its an Olympic year I can only explain it like this: picture the high jump event. Six competitors are still in. Then five, then four. Then three. Then the gold, the silver, and the bronze are settled. But the rules of track and field allow the winner to go on. The bar is raised. A personal best. The Olympic record. The bar is raised again. World record height. The stadium goes quiet. The jumper stills himself on the runway. Intense concentration. The gold medal is already in the bag. Uncharted territory. The jumper rocks from foot to foot, his mind on nothing except jumping higher than he has ever jumped before.
Thats exactly the between-the-lines feeling I was getting from Reich, eleven pages into Rules of Deception - a world-class writer preparing to accomplish something truly noteworthy.
There are a further 377 pages. They live up to the promise.
--Lee Child
Amazon Exclusive Essay: Christopher Reich on Thrillers
Name your five favorite books.
 For me theyre all thrillers. The Day of the Jackal, Eye of the Needle, The Bourne Identity , Noble House, and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. My life stopped when I picked up each of those books and it didnt start again until I finished the last page. I didnt actually read them so much as disappear between their covers. That was me trying to catch the Jackal before he assassinated Charles De Gaulle, and me again at the wheel of a Jaguar XKE convertible racing down the Peak in Hong Kong. The fact is that for me life is somehow better when Im reading a great book. Richer, more excitingheck, I dont know, just better.
About two years ago, I decided that it was my turn to write the thriller Id always wanted to read. I knew exactly where to start. All I had to do was "write what I know." These days, I know a lot about the intelligence community. Not the stuff you read about in the papers -- the stuff you never read about. Over the years, Ive made a lot of friends in Washington and overseas. Diplomats, spies, soldiers, politicians men and women at the highest levels of government. And, I can assure you that what theyve taught me about how the world really works is a lot more interesting and a lot more frightening than youd ever imagine.
Thats where my newest book, Rules of Deception, comes in. Its a story about an honest and courageous doctor named Jonathan Ransom. Hes a surgeon who works for Doctors Without Borders in some of the toughest parts of the world. Hes a happily married man with a big heart and a beautiful English wife he deeply loves named Emma who works with him. What Jonathan doesnt know is that nothing about his life is what it seems. In fact, its all a web of lies and hes caught in the middle of something extraordinarily dangerous.
I cant say more than that, and I shouldnt have to, because if Ive done my job right, when you get to page five youll be hooked and you wont come up for air until its all said and done.
--Christopher Reich
Product Description
Dr. Jonathan Ransom, world-class mountaineer and surgeon for Doctors Without Borders, is climbing in the Swiss Alps with his beautiful wife, Emma, when a blizzard sets in. In their bid to escape the storm, Emma is killed when she falls into a hidden crevasse.
Twenty-four hours later, Jonathan receives an envelope addressed to his wife containing two baggage-claim tickets. Puzzled, he journeys to a remote railway station only to find himself in a life-and-death struggle for his wife’s possessions. In the aftermath of the assault, he discovers that his attackers—one dead, the other mortally wounded—were, in fact, Swiss police officers. More frightening still is evidence of an extraordinary act of betrayal that leaves Jonathan stunned.
Suddenly the subject of an international manhunt and the target of a master assassin, Jonathan is forced on the run. His only chance at survival lies in uncovering the devastating truth behind the secret his wife kept from him and in stopping the terrifying conspiracy that threatens to bring the world to the brink of annihilation. Step by step, he is drawn deeper into a world of spies, high-tech weaponry, and global terrorism—a world where no one is whom they appear to be and where the end always justifies the means.
Rules of Deception is a brilliantly conceived, twisting tale of intrigue and deceit written by the master of the espionage thriller for the twenty-first century.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 65 more reviews...
 You'll want to read Rules..... July 16, 2008
20 out of 28 found this review helpful
Christopher Reich's Rules of Deception is a stupendous read with one twist after another. Rules of Deception contains more suspense that the old movie serials of decades past and
delivers a great story to boot.
Without giving too much a way the protagonist Jonathan Ransom, one of those really nice guys who also happens to be a surgeon working with Doctors Without Borders is pursuing his passion of mountain climbing is the Alps with his wife, Emma. Mountain climbing has tons of risks and with this trip the odds are against Ransom; an avalanche sweeps Emma to her death. Badly shaken Ransom returns to his hotel only to find an envelope delivery awaiting his now dead wife with two claims tickets inside. Using these tickets he finds her secret luggage and the contents reveal that there was a lot more to Emma than he knew. What mayhem follows.
Don't judge this book until you've finished it. Reich provides us with a story that builds as it goes and in the end you'll be glad you stuck with the book. Jonathan eventually reveals himself to be quite the adventurer and engages in wild chases and the use of disguises as he eludes the international manhunt for him.
With characters like Emma's best friend Simone Noiret and Marcus von Daniken, head of the Swiss counterterrorism organization, the story is colorful and engaging. Reich, in the manner of Tom Clancy, is at ease with the incorporation of high tech gadgets into his story and this adds a lot to the suspense.
This is my first Christopher Reich's book but it won't be my last.
I highly recommend Rules of Deception.
RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "AN INTERNATIONAL THRILLER THAT COMBINES ALL OF TODAY'S HEADLINES AND FEARS!" July 17, 2008
9 out of 13 found this review helpful
"A guard patrolling the custodial road caught the flash of yellow lying in the dirt. He approached cautiously... it was not like any butterfly he had seen before. First of all, it was larger. Its wings were rigid, with jagged bits of a paper-thin metal protruding from the silken skin. The fuzzy thorax was split in two and connected by a green wire. Mystified, he picked it up and examined it. Like all those who worked at the facility, he was first and foremost an engineer, and only reluctantly a soldier. What he saw left him shaken. Inside the thorax was an aluminum-cased battery no bigger than a grain of rice, and attached to it, a microwave transmitter. Using his thumbnail, he sheared away the antennae's skin to reveal a cluster of fiber-optic cables, thin as human hair."
"His hand shook as he radioed his superiors." "THEY HAVE FOUND US."
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*** And so this pot-boiling international cauldron of intrigue begins! ***
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What I am about to describe to you at a velocity faster than "ELECTRIFIED-HUMAN-TWITCH-MUSCLE-SPEED" will "NOT" give away any of the myriad of climactic-multi-level mysteries and conundrum's awaiting the potential reader's of this fast-paced and intelligent thriller.
Dr. Jonathan Ransom, a surgeon for Doctors Without Borders, is hiking on a treacherous mountain with his wife Emma, an administrative nurse in the same organization, as a storm starts to approach. Emma falls into an unseen crevasse and dies. One day later, before Jonathan's true mourning can even begin... events quickly unfold that makes Jonathan wonder if he really even knew who his wife was. From unclaimed packages... to missing explosives... to CIA agents capturing terrorists and transporting them illegally throw Swiss airspace... to a professional deranged assassin known as the "Ghost"... to double agents being murdered... to dirty cops... to terrorist suspects flown by America to the Middle East to be boiled in TWO-HUNDRED-DEGREE-WATER in a vat, till their skin comes off, in order to save hundreds if not thousands of innocent lives... and what questions of ethics would arise if the International Atomic Energy Agency knew that Iran had FIFTY-THOUSAND-centrifuges instead of FIVE-HUNDRED... if Iran had radioactive mineral's enriched to NINETY-SIX-PERCENT instead of THIRTY-PERCENT... and what if they had enough enriched uranium-235 to make FOUR AND MAYBE FIVE ATOMIC BOMBS?
The action never stops as the plots and schemes involve law enforcement from around the globe. There are as many fake passports in this novel as there are fake breasts in Hollywood. Although the reader is transported from country to country, a predominance of time is spent in Switzerland, where death is in the air, despite the fact that Switzerland as a country, recorded a total of sixty-seven homicides the previous year. Less than the American city of San Diego, which had one-seventh the population of Switzerland."
Anyone who says this book doesn't keep you on the edge of your seat... has lost their mind... as well as their seat! Oh yea... we also have "POISON DART FROGS!"
A Thriller that Deserves to Be Called a Thriller August 22, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
The story opens with a grabber: Emma Ransom, while skiing with her husband Jonathan, dies in a terrible accident on a Swiss slope, and from there the story tumbles and throbs into a suspenseful spy thriller plot. How often have we seen the amateur, the ordinary guy, caught up in the frightening world of dangerous intrigue and being hunted simultaneously Hitchcockian-style by the cops and evildoers? There's plenty of conniving, conspiring, double dealing, and betraying. Rogue elements within the U.S. government are up to no good.
It's a good thing that Jonathan Ransom is a medical doctor because he has to endure and treat his numerous wounds as he pursues the bad guys.
The Ghost is a CIA trained hit man who dips his bullets in a Central American frog poison. The bad guys are involved in a scheme that involves preemptive and proactive attacks, and Dr. Ransom has to stop them.
You learn a lot as you read the book because the author has done careful research and is knowledgeable in various fields although there is some technical gibberish to add authenticity and believability.
The narration rushes at a breakneck pace, but because the book consists of alternating chapters (episodes) dealing with different sets of characters, some of the book's narrative velocity and urgency is lost, and the reader tends to read it in short spurts rather than at long sittings.
The often used device: the common man thought guilty by the cops becomes like a super hero doing deeds of derring-do beyond the ken of most mortals. He gets away in the knick of time on a number of occasions.
It's a well-written, richly layered, multi-textured book with different plot strands following various characters. In this genre don't expect too much plausibility. The ending is exciting and involves some rewriting of history.
Nine Lives Too Many
The Daemon in Our Dreams
The Rice Queen Spy
Clawed Back from the Dead
Rules of Deception by Christopher Reich August 17, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Fabulous & spellbinding! Couldn't put down this book until I had completed reading it from beginning to end.
Loved Reading This Book! August 28, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have truly enjoyed reading this book, even though I am generally not a reader of fiction. This book was full of surprises at every turn and kept you on the edge of your seat waiting to see what happens next. Very fast moving and I also enjoyed the fact that even though there were numerous characters and places, etc. to keep track of (which I sometimes have problems with in a story), this author wrote in such a way that I was able to keep up with everyone and their part quite easily, which was a nice surprise for me. Was also very surprised at the ending too; did not expect it to end the way it did. Would recommend this book highly.
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