Burning Bright

Written by Nick Petrie

Narrated by Stephen Mendel

“LOTS OF CHARACTERS GET COMPARED TO MY OWN JACK REACHER, BUT PETRIE'S PETER ASH IS THE REAL DEAL.”—Lee Child

*An Entertainment Weekly Must List Pick

In the new novel featuring war veteran Peter Ash, “an action hero of the likes of Jack Reacher or Jason Bourne” (Lincoln Journal-Star), Ash has a woman’s life in his hands—and her mystery is stranger than he could ever imagine.
 
War veteran Peter Ash sought peace and quiet among the towering redwoods of northern California, but the trip isn’t quite the balm he’d hoped for. The dense forest and close fog cause his claustrophobia to buzz and spark, and then he stumbles upon a grizzly, long thought to have vanished from this part of the country. In a fight of man against bear, Peter doesn’t favor his odds, so he makes a strategic retreat up a nearby sapling.

There, he finds something strange: a climbing rope, affixed to a distant branch above. It leads to another, and another, up through the giant tree canopy, and ending at a hanging platform. On the platform is a woman on the run. From below them come the sounds of men and gunshots.

Just days ago, investigative journalist June Cassidy escaped a kidnapping by the men who are still on her trail. She suspects they’re after something belonging to her mother, a prominent software designer who recently died in an accident. June needs time to figure out what’s going on, and help from someone with Peter’s particular set of skills.

Only one step ahead of their pursuers, Peter and June must race to unravel this peculiar mystery. What they find leads them to an eccentric recluse, a shadowy pseudo-military organization, and an extraordinary tool that may change the modern world forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Audio
• Release date: Jan 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9780735289048

Nick Petrie

Nick Petrie received his MFA in fiction from the University of Washington, won a Hopwood Award for short fiction, and his story 'At the Laundromat' won the 2006 Short Story Contest in the Seattle Review. His debut novel featuring ex-soldier Peter Ash, The Drifter, won numerous awards including the International Thriller Writers Award for Best First Novel in 2017.

Reviews for Burning Bright

[northernteacher-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Loved the adventure. Straightaway I was engrossed by the Redwoods - we certainly don't have these in the UK! And as I always read any author Acknowledgements, very soon I'll get a copy of The Wild Trees by Richard Preston.

[zmagic69 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The second book in the series, after The Drifter. You don't have to have read The Drifter to read this, but you definitely will at some point want to read it.
This time out Peter Ash, former Marine first runs foul of a California bear out in the wilderness, and then run into June, an investigative journalist being chased by a shadowy possibly government organization who wants the code her mother was working on, which will have a huge impact on how computer perform in the future.
I literally could not put this book down and finished it in a day.
A great book for summer.

[pattylee-621744 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Entertaining and engaging, especially if you like Lee Child. This has a bit more character development (no stretch after Child, believe me).

[randall6hansen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Really enjoying the Peter Ash series; this book is #2, and you can tell the author has definitely evolved and improved his craft. The storytelling is stronger and the characters better developed. And, oh yes, a love interest for Peter -- maybe.

[reader1009-863136 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

fiction - action/suspense. Nick Petrie has won accolades for his protagonist Peter Ash (an Iraq/Afghanistan veteran who suffers realistically from PTSD), and this second book in the series delivers plenty of action and adrenaline, though it ends kind of abruptly. Conveniently, his love interest in this volume (who has been depending on his brawn this whole time as well as sleeping with him) waits until the last chapter before telling him to leave her and come back when he's better able to cope with his claustrophobia--leaving him romantically unencumbered for his next adventure.

[susandennis-139327 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I am now totally suckered into this series. This particular episode was also all about Seattle and most of the references were still good but the pandemic has put the kibosh on some.

[lewilliams-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lee Child states " Lots of characters get compared to my own Jack Reacher, but Peter Ash is the real deal." Ash is former Marine who suffers from PTSD. He escapes a Grizzly by climbing a California Redwood. High atop the tree, he is astonished to meet a woman pointing a compound bow at him. So begins a page turning ride. It would help to have read the first book in this series, The Drifter to get the background on Ash.

[tomdonaghey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Burning Bright (2017) by Nick Petrie. Peter Ash was introduced in the book ‘The Drifter’, an action filled thriller that beingness of his character. Ash returns, facing a grizzly while backpacking through the woods of California. His escape is, literally, up a tree. While waiting for the bear to get bored eating his phone and other possessions, Peter finds a new climbing rope leading higher into the tall trees. With nothing better to do, he climbs only to discover a new adventure and a new woman in his life.
She has a gun, just like the men who shortly arrive down below. The shooting starts and the pair in the tree have to escape in the most dazzling fashion. She is June Cassidy, a journalist whose mother had recently died. Mom was a computer software expert with a new gizmo that the “Government” is very interested in owning. She didn’t sell and after a few offers, died.
June is on the run after the “Government” people decide she has the device.
Peter and June team up and try to discover who is after them. Action and more adventure ensue.
While I was reading this I thought the opening chapters were brilliant. The latter chapters, for all their life and vitality, reminded me of so many other ‘Conspiracy’ books and movies from the past several decades. If not for the strength of the main character, this book might dissolve into the mists of a routine type of story. Also, there is something of a growing feeling that the author might have been reading too many of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels. Not a bad thing to tip your hat to if I say so myself.
Still, very worth reading.

[kmajort · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

#2 in the Peter Ash series - I really enjoyed the debut. This story is... good. I'm not over the moon, but enjoyed it. The character is making strides with his ptsd, realizes taking steps to get help is key to better relationships..
All while busting some bad-guy balls.
Written in a beautiful set of locations.

[highlander6022 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A really excellent book, a very fast read, exciting story line. I did not realize the author had a debut novel as well, so no will be picking that one up to read as well…sounds like there will be much more character development of the main character in this novel. If the author continues to write novels like this one, this will be one of the better series in recent memory. Highly recommend reading this book.

[vicki_weisfeld · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Petrie’s debut thriller, The Drifter, was a 2016 favorite. In these novels, Petrie’s protagonist, Peter Ash, is a veteran Marine lieutenant who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. His war experience left him with a form of post-traumatic stress disorder that he calls “the static,” and it starts up whenever he’s in a confined space—indoors, for example—threatening to bloom into a full-blown panic.
For that reason, he’s spent a lot of time tromping around the deep forests of the northwest United States, living in a tent, trying to convince himself no one is shooting at him. Unfortunately, in this book, someone is.
When he climbs a young redwood tree to escape a rampaging bear, he discovers he’s not the first or the only one hiding out up there. Following a trail of ropes, he finds a woman with a bow and arrow, the arrow aimed at his heart. (Hits it, too, but not in the literal sense.) The sound of automatic weapons on the ground tells them they need to fly. Their escape through the treetops, thirty stories up and above the forest fog is pure excitement. And that powerful opener is just the beginning of their non-stop adventure.
The woman, June Cassidy, is on the run. Her mother—an artificial intelligence researcher at Stanford University—was killed by a hit-and-run driver, all the contents of her office were carried away in the middle of the night by “government” heavies, who later tried to kidnap Cassidy. Her mother has developed an algorithm to penetrate secure networks called Tyg3r, and quite a few determined folks think now Cassidy has it.
Cassidy wants to know who killed her mother. Ash’s interest is in Cassidy, and he wants to use his considerable tactical and physical skills to protect her. In a recent essay about thriller superheroes, London Review of Books editor John Lanchester described his Superman Test for plausibility: “Is what I’m being asked to believe less likely than the character’s being able to fly?”
Somehow, Petrie’s depiction of Ash and his actions would pass that test. In part that’s because the author is meticulous about explaining how Ash and Cassidy do what they do. Whether you understand all those rope climbing terms or not, the details are utterly convincing.
At the same time, it seems less believable that multiple teams of heavily armed pseudo-governmental agents are driving around in phalanxes of black Ford Explorers. Yet, Ash needs a significant foe, and there’s a high-tech prize of inestimable value here. Perhaps it makes sense that considerable human and firepower resources are focused on acquiring it.
Though heavily overmatched, Ash and Cassidy are not without resources of their own. In addition to their personal skills, Ash calls on some a few pals, including one from The Drifter, Lewis: genius investor, crack shot, awesome sense of humor. Banter between Cassidy and Ash is pretty genuine and entertaining too.
The Northern California and Seattle-area settings are refreshing and full of possibility for the kind of mental isolation that breeds paranoia. And there’s plenty of it in this novel, given the game-changing significance of the technologies it explores. As Petrie says in an author’s note, “large institutions, both public and private, operate with few controls in a fast-changing environment. For some reason, I don’t find this entirely comforting.” Nor will you.

[carolesrandomlife · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book really grabbed my attention from the start with almost non-stop excitement. It almost felt like I had been thrown into an action movie and I loved every minute of it. Before I even knew it, I had read a large part of the book. The pace of the story did eventually slow down but the excitement never stopped because I couldn't stop trying to figure out how things would work out. This was such a great read.

Peter Ash is veteran dealing with PTSD which causes him to feel claustrophobic anytime he is indoors. He deals with it as best he can which usually means that he tries to stay out of buildings as much as possible. I find Peter to be a very interesting and unique character. He thinks quick and knows his limitations. June is a reporter that finds herself hiding from a group of men that attempted to kidnap her. June meets Peter and they start to work together to figure out why she has been targeted. June's character really complimented Peter's nicely. Their personalities meshed perfectly and they seemed to be able to work smoothly together almost from the moment that they met.

This book has no shortage of action. Peter and June find themselves in the middle of several intense situations and I never know exactly how things would turn around. I was never quite sure exactly who the bad guy was so I didn't really trust any of the characters besides Peter and June and of course, Lewis, who I was very happy to see make an appearance in this book. The story took quite a few twists and turns with many unexpected moments.

I would recommend this book to others. This is the second book in the Peter Ash series and while it could be read as a stand alone, readers will probably appreciated the background knowledge from the first book. I can't wait to get my hands on the next book in this exciting series.

I received an advance reader edition of this book from Penguin Group - Putnam G.P. Putnam's Sons via NetGalley and First to Read.