Out of the Dark by Gregg Hurwitz

I rappelled into the Minotaur Books Lair recently, and liberated an advance reader edition of Gregg Hurwitz' new book Out of the Dark.  Somehow his editor thinks a locked safe and armed guard will keep me from my beloved Evan Smoak. HA!

Of course it was a delicious read.
Please.
This is Gregg Hurwitz we're talking about.

I'm posting about the book though because there were a couple places where I had to put the book down and to savor the sweet little twist I'd just read.  (Friday's blog post talks about this)

Here's an example of what I mean by a small twist of expectation:

"If he was not fortunate enough to be executed"

which of course is a twist on fortunate enough NOT to be executed, the expected phrase.

and

"It was a civilized way to conduct an assassination"

cause really, are assassinations civilized at all?

and my favorite

"she stared at him, smugly photosynthesizing" 

about his aloe plant Vera II.

And then there's page 294 (or the page before Chapter 52 if the pagination is different in the final edition)

That turns everything around completely, and I had to read it twice to make sure I was seeing it right.

In other words, if you're a writer and you want to see a master craftsman of pacing and plot twists and deft language at work, you just can't go wrong with Gregg Hurwitz.