Locked Doors by Blake Crouch

 

Andrew Thomas has been on the run for seven years.  Seven years ago, his life was almost perfect.  He was gaining fame as a novelist.  He lived on Lake Norman in North Carolina surrounded by friends.  Then his brother returned and Andrew's entire life exploded.

His brother was a psychopath.  He was also a serial killer and he and his partner, Luther Kite, had killed many people for years.  Now they pulled off their master plan, killing Andrew's mother and burying the body on his property.  They also threw in several other victim's bodies to make the deception work and it did.  Suddenly, Andrew Thomas was wanted everywhere, his picture on every news show and he made the FBI Most Wanted list.  

Andrew fought back.  Along with his best friend, Steve, he went out to track down his brother and Luther.  At the end of his trip, his brother was dead and he left Luther dying in the desert.  Unfortunately, Steve was also killed and Andrew buried him in a remote place.  Then he hit the roads.

He lived as an undocumented person, always on the move, working menial jobs for a few days or weeks when he could find them, then moving on.  Finally, he has ended up in a remote village in the Yukon.  There, he lives peacefully under an alias, finally putting his past behind him.  Or so he thinks.

But two things converge to ruin his sanctuary.  An aspiring writer, working in a bookstore, recognizes Andrew when he comes in to browse and is determined to track him down and interview him.  Far worse, Luther survived his desert ordeal and has decided to draw Andrew out of isolation.  He kills Andrew's former fiancee in a very public manner and kidnaps Steve's wife.  When Andrew sees this, he knows he must give up his peaceful life and finish what he started seven years ago.  Along with a young police detective, he tracks Luther down for one final confrontation from which only one of them will emerge.

This was my first Blake Crouch novel.  He grew up in North Carolina about eighty miles from my location.  I always like to read and feature North Carolina authors and it's wonderful to see how famous Blake has become in the years since he graduated from Chapel Hill.  This novel was suspenseful and full of twists.  It is recommended for readers of suspense novels.