Breakthrough: A Thriller

Julian Palmer #3

by Jonathan Stone

Detective Julian Palmer is taking a break from homicide-or so she thinks. Signing on to assist in a simple insurance investigation, she soon finds herself enmeshed in something far more elaborate. It's a bizarre case, one that leads her from a dead investment banker with a mysterious briefcase, to a renegade inventor in the New Mexico desert, and ultimately, to the investing frenzy of Wall Street in the late 1990's. It also leads her to an unexpected romance with Tom Hartley-a man as lonely as Julian, and as passionate about uncovering the truth.Welcome to the twists, turns and switchbacks that are Jonathan Stone's trademark. A world of puzzles and mirrors, where the possibilities move as fast as the characters. Where the trail goes from cold to warm to searing hot. And where a beautiful young banker seems to wield more power dead than alive. In Jonathan Stone's Breakthrough, the collars may be white, but the blood still runs red.

Genres: Mystery

369 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2003

About the author

Jonathan Stone, author of the Julian Palmer novels, is a graduate of Yale University, where he was a Scholar of the House in Fiction Writing and twice won the English Department's John Hubbard Curtis Prize for Best Imaginative Writing. He works in advertising and lives in Connecticut with his wife and two children.

Reviews

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Civilized Rumor—A Lesson in Dangerousness.

Whoa…hard to know where to begin with this amazing story. Julian Palmer is free-lancing as an investigator as she raises baby Amy for Alyshia, who lives in a half-way house; hopefully capturing some early adolescence as only a thirteen-year-old could. Her investigation involves Tom Hartley in, oh so many, ways.

And the rest? "Gleaming surfaces…accurate, focused, soulless". If you wonder what shape the mystery will take, the crime, it is summarized in the author's words:

"Because crime, it turned out, wasn't marginalized. Wasn't just a depressing set of statistics emanating from a forlorn segment. Crime was pervasive. Crime was front and center. Crime was even philosophical. Crime was the place to be."

That kind of crime. Business for business's sake kind of crime. Surely not only a metaphor for life in general. This is a thriller after all.

And the author has a cynical observation that I, Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, notwithstanding, can appreciate—that we all learn to accept the scams of life, to accept that we will be scammed. This is dangerous ground for the human soul. And scams, unfortunately, are perpetrated by others, and self. Some live through and beyond them; some only exist in them.

Julian and Tom, separately, manage to unravel all this. Smart, curious, wanting to know. Good people to have on your side. At your side.

[JACK DIXON · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great series.

This three book series has everything. Characters caught up in situations that take them into many twists and turns. These characters are believable with their own histories and relationships. I would recommend the series to anyone who wants a continuing story that is never predictable.