Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jan 2012
336 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
A spectacularly original thriller about a professional torturer who has a strict code, a mysterious past, and a dangerous conviction that he can save the life of an innocent child.
Geiger has a gift: he knows a lie the instant he hears it. And in his business - called "information retrieval" by its practitioners - that gift is invaluable, because truth is the hottest thing on the market.
Geiger's clients count on him to extract the truth from even the most reluctant subjects. Unlike most of his competitors, Geiger rarely sheds blood, but he does use a variety of techniques - some physical, many psychological - to push his subjects to a point where pain takes a backseat to fear. Because only then will they finally stop lying.
One of Geiger's rules is that he never works with children. So when his partner, former journalist Harry Boddicker, unwittingly brings in a client who demands that Geiger interrogate a twelve-year-old boy, Geiger responds instinctively. He rescues the boy from his captor, removes him to the safety of his New York City loft, and promises to protect him from further harm. But if Geiger and Harry cannot quickly discover why the client is so desperate to learn the boy's secret, they themselves will become the victims of an utterly ruthless adversary.
Mesmerizing and heart-in-your-throat compelling, The Inquisitor is a completely unique thriller that introduces both an unforgettable protagonist and a major new talent in Mark Allen Smith.
"Starred Review. With some detailed accounts of torture... this is not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach... A compelling debut thriller that blurs the lines between the good and bad guys." - Library Journal
"Starred Review. This may be the most unusual and talked about thriller of the season." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. A breezy, involving thriller that handily overcomes any resistance to its grisly premise and leaves you hoping for the return of its oddly winning hero." - Kirkus Reviews
"The novel loses some power when it becomes a chase, but the awful plausibility of the plot and the compelling characters, especially the haunted torturer, make this a very special debut." - Booklist
This information about The Inquisitor was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Mark Allen Smith, who lives in New York City, has worked for many years in both movies and television as a screenwriter, investigative news producer, and documentary filmmaker. This is his first novel.
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