The Bomb Maker

By Thomas Perry

Perry is one of America’s premier thriller writers and the Mysterious Press’s bestselling author. We are expecting new blurbs from Lee Child, Nelson DeMille, and Jeffery Deaver for The Bomb Maker.

Stephen King tweeted about reading The Bomb Maker to his 4.5 million followers.

The Bomb Maker is to be developed by Fox with the title The Long Walk, with CSI veteran Carol Mendelsohn attached as writer and Morris Chestnut (Rosewood) as star, announced on Deadline.

An Amazon best book of the month in the Mysteries & Thrillers category. One of Entertainment Weekly’s 50 most anticipated books of 2018. One of Lisa Levy’s 5 crime must-reads for January (Literary Hub).

With Perry’s most recent thriller, The Old Man, we’ve seen a significant jump up in sales, especially in ebook—already 5,000 more digital copies have been sold than in the life of the previous book. It was also an Indie Next pick for January 2017.

The Old Man, about a former military intelligence agent on the run for decades from a job gone wrong in Libya, took on a more international canvas and bigger plot than Perry’s previous novels. His new novel, The Bomb Maker—which alternates between the perspective of an anonymous bomb maker working for a shadowy terrorist organization and the LAPD Bomb Squad—feels even bigger. We hope the upward trend in sales will continue with this high-octane plot.

The Old Man is being adapted for a TV series starring Samuel L. Jackson (in his first TV series commitment) by Jonathan E. Steinberg (co-creator of Black Sails), Warren Littlefield (executive producer of Fargo and Handmaid’s Tale), and Fox 21 TV Studios, and is already getting industry buzz, including a piece in Deadline.

Perry’s 2016 novel, Forty Thieves, was a finalist for the Strand Critics Award for Best Novel and was named one of Booklist’s Top 10 Crime Novels of the Year. A String of Beads was a national bestseller.

In a New York Times Book Review “By the Book” interview, Stephen King named Perry among a list of “unheralded writers” we should be reading.

Perry co-wrote two books in a #1 New York Times bestselling series with Clive Cussler.

Poison Flower was named one of the 101 Best Crime Novels of the Past Decade by Booklist; Vanishing Act was named one of the 100 best mysteries of the twentieth century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers' Association; and Metzger’s Dog was voted one of the best 100 thrillers ever by NPR listeners.

We have a significant investment in Perry, with five previous titles in print, another under contract, and a guaranteed marketing spend/travel budget for each book. We will continue to promote the backlist through BookBub and other promotions

Perry is a Goodreads author with over 48,000 ratings and 5,000 reviews.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mysterious Press
• Release date: Jan 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9780802165534

Thomas Perry

Thomas Perry is the New York Times bestselling author of nearly thirty novels, including the critically acclaimed Jane Whitefield series, The Old Man, and The Butcher's Boy, which won the Edgar Award. He lives in Southern California. Follow Thomas on Facebook at @ThomasPerryAuthor.

Reviews for The Bomb Maker

[booklover915 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thomas Perry's "The Bomb Maker," features a title character who is never named. This is fitting, since he is a one-dimensional villain who is scarcely recognizable as human. He is a megalomaniac who embodies greed, duplicity, and malice and takes pleasure in destroying people "from a safe distance." The bomb maker knows that "the planet is full of substances that could be made to explode" and uses his knowledge to design and create sophisticated devices made to fool all but the most savvy demolition experts.

When the bomb maker commits an outrageous act that shocks the citizens of Los Angeles, Deputy Chief Dave Ogden calls in forty-four year old Dick Stahl, a retired Explosive Ordinance Disposal Expert. Stahl's impressive resume includes stints in various war zones and the LAPD, where he recruited and trained members of the LA Bomb Squad. Currently, Stahl operates his own successful security company. He is a shrewd individual who carefully analyzes each situation before taking action.

This novel is an escapist thrill-ride, a gladiatorial contest between two well-matched opponents. There are riveting scenes in which Stahl painstakingly tries to defuse bombs with hidden traps. He and his colleagues wear heavy suits with Kevlar and steel plates, and when necessary, use a containment vessel, a robot, and/or mirrors and video cameras to get a closer look at the bomb's components. The writing is crisp and descriptive without being ornate, and the story has a forward momentum that makes us eager to learn what will happen next. Although suspenseful and fast-paced, "The Bomb Maker" is neither nuanced nor realistic. The plot includes an unnecessary romance; petty political infighting; and shadowy terrorists whose contrived relationship with the bomb maker weakens the book's credibility. Still, this is a nail-biter that will make you appreciate the brave men and women in bomb squads all over the world who take terrible risks to protect others from harm.

[cmt100 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Perry strikes again. A stay-up-late-until-you-finish-it book. I learned a lot about bombs. (I hope not all of it is accurate.) Perhaps not Perry's best, but plenty good enough.

[alanteder · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Ends too abruptly and without the proper catharsisGenerally speaking, Thomas Perry writes by using only one plot mechanism: the hunter & the evader. The inventive ways that he tweaks that mechanism are what has made him a reliable suspense writer. He alternates having the heroes & villains as being either the hunters or the escapers. It is not necessarily always the police doing the chasing or the villains being the escapers.His "Jane Whitefield" series is built around a heroine whose whole premise is to hide people, a one-person witness protection agency. His "Butcher's Boy" is a hit-man on the run from all those trying to run him down whether the police or other villains. In last year's "The Old Man", Perry set himself the challenge of portraying the escapee as a senior citizen and the result was one of his best.Unfortunately this year's "The Bomb Maker" falls flat in the challenge department. The most unique feature about it is that the villains are unidentified and mostly anonymous. That may of course agree with a lot of unsolved or even solved crimes in reality but does not provide much of a catharsis for the reader. The hero is supposed to pass through a journey that purges an element of villainy from the world, thereby earning our empathy and identification. When the object of the purging is relatively unknown, the solution and satisfaction feel unfulfilled and empty.I still appreciate Thomas Perry for always attempting a new angle to his plots, but this one just did not conclude in a satisfactory manner

[hardboiled-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

If you are looking for a good, quick read filled with action and a bit of suspense this may be for you. I felt like I learned more about bomb making than I really wanted but that knowledge helped lend credence to the bomb maker's actions. While entertaining, I found a number of weaknesses in the plot including a superficial development of the bomb maker's character and an ending that seemed rushed and anticlimactic. I guess I feel cheated that there wasn't a head to head resolution of the cat and mouse struggle between Stahl and the bomb maker that carried the first seventy-five percent of the book.

[signoraedie_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Story is gripping and well-written. BUT the ending had so many loose ends, I was disappointed.

[ecw0647 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Audiobook. I have read/listened to many of Perry's books and generally I like them. They are perfect for traveling, walking the dog, doing the dishes, mowing the lawn, etc. There does seem to be a common theme in all of them regardless of whether the protagonist is a "good" or "bad" guy and that's the sort of savior or lone man/woman against hoards of overwhelming odds. It makes for an enjoyable read if a bit implausible.

[ikeman100 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another great story by this author.

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

I love a good Thomas Perry and this is one. A good and credible story well told.