"Running
From the Devil" by Jamie Freveletti; Wm. Morrow
(310 pages, $24.99)
Jamie
Freveletti's debut takes control of a category of long
neglected thrillers — the women's adventure story —
and shows how to excel at these novels.
While
several authors have dabbled in women's adventure tales
through the years, too many have peppered their novels
with unbelievable situations, stick-figure characters
and, when the action waned, an overabundance of sexual
situations.
Freveletti
skillfully keeps "Running From the Devil"
realistic and tense with believable characters worth
caring about and action that never stops. Although she
occasionally succumbs to cliched scenes, well, Clive
Cussler does that all the time and it hasn't hurt him.
Freveletti
immediately plunges her heroine Emma Caldridge into a
life or death situation. Emma, a chemist for a cosmetics
company, is on her way to Bogota from her Miami home
when the airplane crashes in the jungle near the
Venezuelan border. Emma is thrown a few feet from the
crash where she watches a band of guerillas drag out the
survivors, and lead them into the jungle.
Emma
knows she has two choices. She can stay near the crash
and risk the jungle's dangers and the terrorists
returning; or follow the guerrillas, hoping she might
find some semblance of civilization and help along the
way. As she follows, she catches up to Cameron Sumner, a
wounded government agent left to die by the guerillas.
But these two are not as alone as they believe.
Meanwhile, the head of a private security firm and the
Department of Defense are trying to find a way to rescue
the group.
An
ordinary man or woman would be totally outmatched by the
situation. But Emma is an ultra-endurance marathon
runner, accustomed to running 100 miles at a clip, and,
as a research chemist, she knows the local flora. While
Freveletti gives Emma unusual skills, the author doesn't
make her a superhero. Emma's intelligence, not her
brawn, gives her the extra edge.
Freveletti
never gives her characters — or the reader — a
moment's rest. Tense action is packed into the plot from
the first page to "Running From the Devil's"
explosive end.
The
setting is used to its fullest as the author shows us
just how the jungle smells, tastes and sounds at
different times. The scant South Florida scenes,
however, rely on cliches and such uninspired
descriptions as "Miami had a certain flair."
Freveletti,
an attorney who lives in Chicago, sets high standards in
"Running From the Devil," and, of course,
leaves room for a sequel.