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Peter Abrahams

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Hard Rain Kindle Edition

by Peter Abrahams (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.3 119 ratings

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Stephen King’s “favorite American suspense novelist” plunges a woman into secrets of the 1960s and ’70s as she races to save her daughter.

Peter Abrahams (also known as Spencer Quinn, New York Times–bestselling author of the Chet and Bernie Mysteries) delivers a gripping thriller about a Los Angeles single mother caught up in a conspiracy with roots in 1969’s Woodstock Festival.

Jessie Shapiro restores paintings for a living, but ever since her divorce from unfaithful musician Pat, she can barely make ends meet. One weekend, Pat fails to bring their ten-year-old daughter, Kate, home. When Jessie goes to his Venice Beach house, she hears a disturbing cut-off message on his answering machine and discovers strange foreign words written in big block letters on his kitchen blackboard. Then her life is threatened.

The police are dragging their feet, so Jessie embarks on her own search for Kate. Her quest takes her across the country and back decades, from the drug haze of Woodstock to the lethal jungles of Vietnam to the highest echelons of Russian and American intelligence. The truth—more shocking than she ever imagined—may not set her free. But it could cost her everything.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Divorced from an irresponsible studio musician, Jessie Shapiro barely manages to support herself and her daughter by restoring paintings. Suddenly, her daughter and ex-husband disappear. Jessie finds a warning on his answering machine, but later it's erased. Then her best friend, wearing Jessie's slicker, is run over. Jessie sees a sinister pattern, but the police dismiss her fears. As Jessie tracks her daughter across the United States, she uncovers a deadly secret from his college days during the Vietnam era. Hard Rain is a solid mystery/political thriller about a self-reliant average woman thrown without warning into a smoky conspiracy. Riveting.A.M.B. Amantia, Population Crisis Committee Lib., Washington , D.C.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Peter Abrahams is the author of The Tutor, The Last of the Dixie Heroes, A Perfect Crime, Crying Wolf, and The Fan, which was made into a major motion picture starring Robert DeNiro. He lives on Cape Cod with his wife and four children.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00Z8POQUW
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller; Reprint edition (July 28, 2015)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 28, 2015
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3660 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 436 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #1,018,294 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,577 in Financial Thrillers (Books)
- #2,276 in Political Thrillers & Suspense
- #2,904 in Conspiracy Thrillers (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
4.3 119 ratings

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Peter Abrahams

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Peter Abrahams – “criminally gifted” according to the New York Times Book Review - is the Edgar-award winning author of thirty-seven novels. Named by Stephen King as his “favorite American suspense novelist,” Abrahams is a writer of great range, his work including boundary-pushing crime novels such as Oblivion and End of Story as well as the dog-narrated and New York Times bestselling Chet and Bernie series (written under his pen name, Spencer Quinn), which “radiate pure comic genius” according to Publishers Weekly. On NPR’s Talk of the Nation, Laura Miller called him “the best writer of psychological fiction around.” He also writes for middle-graders - the Queenie and Arthur series, written under the Quinn pen name, began with Ruff vs. Fluff in 2019. Abrahams was born in Boston, graduated from Williams College, and lives on Cape Cod. You can visit him at peterabrahams.com.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

119 global ratings

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Rebecca Compton

A hard rain’s gonna fall…

Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2022

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From a Woodstock era lyric to settings in Vietnam, California, and New England, hard rain, indeed, does fall. Nothing is quite as it seems as a mother searches frantically for her missing little girl. This is a page-turner mystery with such well-developed characters, I’m sure I will be pondering it for a long, long time.

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Judy

A Mind Bending Thriller

Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2016

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This book was a fast paced thriller that kept the reader wondering what could possibly happen next--and who were these people?? I liked the challenge of trying to make the connections between the characters.

One person found this helpful

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Addage

Child Kidnapping leads to even greater crimes!

Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2014

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One of my very favorites. I reread it every few years. Abrahams is always very clever. I enjoy how he weaves the music and culture into the underlying mystery. Hard Rain has a clever plot and excellent pacing. You like his central characters. Kidnapping, Murder and Spies--how can you beat that? I think his earlier works were his best. Highly recommended.

2 people found this helpful

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Patto

A very complex missing person case

Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2024

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Jessie’s ex-husband fails to bring their daughter back from a sailing weekend. It soon becomes apparent that both he and ten-year-old Kate are missing. The police detective isn’t much help. He even comes on to Jessie.

The man who will be a help is Ivan Zyzmchuck, some sort of federal investigator. He’s been assigned the job of spying on a senator’s wife. But that story line merges into others that eventually bring him into contact with Jessie. There are multiple story lines in this book, and a plethora of characters whose connections to each other will slowly be revealed.

I liked the main characters, Ivan and Jessie, and there’s certainly an amazing twist at the end, but the plot of Hard Rain was just too complicated for me. Usually I like books by Peter Abrahams, and I love everything he writes as Spencer Quinn. But Hard Rain was hard going for me.

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Amazon Customer

You gotta be over 60 to really get it.

Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2018

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Love Peter Abraham's ability to develop characters. He can do in three sentences what some writers take 50 pages to do. Hard Rain uses multiple characters (maybe too many, difficult to keep track of) to develop a diabolical plot. But a plot that is steeped in the culture of the 1960's-1970's, one that is so plausible, especially if you lived through the era; it comes together and justifies all the characters that make it happen.

2 people found this helpful

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flogig

An Intelligent Thriller

Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2017

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Well written and smart, this thriller by Abrahams is full of twists and mystery. I couldn't stop reading but am not surprised. It's the 3rd by this writer that I've read, each of them 5 stars. For a fun read, he can't be beat.

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AnnelleB

More twists than a pretzel

Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2018

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Very enjoyable read. The plot twists were unexpected and I thought the characters were well developed. Looking forward to reading more by this author.

One person found this helpful

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mocobe

Great story

Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2016

Verified Purchase

There were too many times I wondered about the common sense of the characters. I had also figured out the mystery pretty early.