Go-Between

By Lisa Brackmann

An all-too-realistic thriller about for-profit prisons, big-money politics, shady non-profits, the war on drugs—and the people who would kill to keep the system intact

Emily runs a successful bistro in Humboldt County, California, where she lives with her boyfriend, Jeff, a volunteer firefighter. A lot of her best customers are in the cannabis business, but so what? It’s true, firefighting isn’t really Jeff’s main job—that would be flying Humboldt’s finest weed to out-of-state customers. And sure, he isn’t really Emily’s boyfriend, more like the guy she’s stuck with by circumstance. Actually, his name is Danny, not Jeff, and Emily’s real name is Michelle Mason, although no one can ever know that. She’s on the run from her past—which has just caught up with her. Gary, an ex-CIA agent who got her and Danny into this whole mess, has just shown up in Humboldt County. Michelle should have killed him when she had the chance, but now she’s stuck playing Gary’s game—and if she loses, she or someone close to her will pay the ultimate price.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jul 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781616957254

Lisa Brackmann

Lisa Brackmann is the critically acclaimed author of the Ellie McEnroe novels—Rock Paper Tiger, Hour of the Rat, Dragon Day—and the thriller Getaway. Her work has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Travel+Leisure and CNET. She lives in San Diego with a couple of cats, far too many books and a bass ukulele.

Reviews for Go-Between

[gmmartz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I like Lisa Brackman's writing and I really liked 'Go-Between', but I would've enjoyed it even more had I read her previous work where the cast of characters had been introduced. By the end of Go-Between, I was pretty sure I understood the various relationships and had at least an inkling of what had happened in the past. However, it was pretty irritating to spend the majority of the book wondering about who these people really were. It's a pretty tricky plot. Ellen runs a little upscale hippie restaurant in northern California. Danny, her significant other, takes the occasional job helping pot smugglers- apparently a big business in that part of the country. Unfortunately, this time his luck runs out, coincidentally at the same time a man from Ellen's past, the mysterious Gary, pays her a threatening visit. Had I read the previous book in what appears to be a series, I'd would've had a better chance of understanding what was going on, but I digress....So, it turns out Gary, who has black ops government ties, was behind Danny's arrest and incarceration in order to pressure Ellen into helping him keep an eye on a woman who operates a group that opposes pot legalization and other social/legal issues. The remainder of the story is involved with her 'spying' on her employer's charity, trying to get her boyfriend out of the joint, figuring out how/why Gary is doing all of this to them, keeping her various identities and cellphones straight, and basically staying alive for another day. The pressure and almost claustrophobic feeling of the book increases as you go along, to the point where something has to give. It does, with a conclusion that's considerably less bloody than expected.Brackmann's writing is nothing special, except that she seems to have a knack for matching her technique with the pace of the action. She does a good job with dialogue and the action sequences are believable. The powers of the mysterious Gary seem a little overdone, but from what we've learned about NSA capabilities and so on over the last couple years, maybe they're not. Go-Between is a really good thriller but I'd recommend reading Getaway, where the major characters are introduced, first.