Jamie Freveletti

First Line: Emma Caldridge went to sleep in first class on a British Airlines flight from Miami to Bogotá, and woke sixty seconds before the plane was downed in the Colombian jungle.

Emma is thrown unhurt from the plane and watches in dread as guerillas round up the rest of the crash survivors and lead them into the jungle.

At first wanting to get help for herself and the others, Emma heads in a different direction, but one by one her alternative routes are closed off to her, and she finds show more herself following the others and trying to stay hidden from the guerillas. Along the way, she runs into an injured government agent, Cameron Sumner, who was left behind to die.

A task force from the United States is on the way to search for survivors, but time is running out. Fortunately Emma is no ordinary woman, and she guards a very powerful secret.

I love thrillers with smart, determined female leads, and Running from the Devil has a winner in Emma Caldridge. I could happily have spent the entire book reading about her surviving on her own out in the jungle, but I suppose that wouldn't have done much for the plot. Emma is such a fascinating character-- a chemist for a cosmetics company and an ultramarathon runner-- that the few times the plot veers away from the natural green jungle and moves to the unnatural concrete jungle inhabited by Washington, D.C., power mongers, I wanted to groan.

Unlike most thrillers I've read, there were secondary characters that shone brightly for their brief close-ups, but they didn't fade permanently from view. Freveletti made readers care for those people, and she was aware that we would want to know what happened to them.

The only thing that I had a hard time swallowing was the dire secret that Emma was guarding so closely. I was happy to see that she didn't shirk her responsibility for it, but I just didn't buy into it. Since I do my best to avoid spoilers, I won't discuss it any further.

If you're in the mood for a fast-paced thriller with a strong, captivating female lead, I think Running from the Devil may be just what the doctor ordered. show less

After reading this author's first book, Running from the Devil I had to read the second one. She showed so much potential in her first thriller that I wanted to see how it played out.

Wow! This was an excellent thriller involving Somali pirates, a cruise ship with a mysterious cargo, and lots of action. I mentioned before how nice it was to read a thriller with a competent female hero and this is true here. Emma will stop at nothing to ensure the success of her mission, even flying into show more Mogadishu on a khat plane on her way to the cruise ship.

The other characters in this book are just as well written including a pair of passengers from Texas that prove to be more than equal to fighting off pirates. Lots of interesting information about Somali pirates is a bonus.

This thriller is perfectly paced with enough details and plot twists to keep you interested, but not so many that it just begins to seem pointless. Romantic undercurrents - check, romance as the focus - not. Personally I read thrillers for the action-packed escapism and could care less about who's kissing who so this was just perfect for me.

Great, fun, entertaining read - go get this book! show less

The summer thriller season has now officially opened with the publication of debut author Jamie Freveletti’s Running from the Devil – one of those books that becomes glued to your hands when you start reading it and doesn’t become unglued until you’ve turned the last page. Freveletti knows how to plot, and she knows how to keep her readers engaged, and she sure as heck knows how to use her research to create a believable story that’s a step above most thrillers. This former trial show more attorney who is now a competitive speed runner, a black belt in the martial art of aikido, and a keen observer of international politics seems to be able to do anything she turns her mind to.

Running from the Devil starts with a plane crash in the middle of the Columbian jungle, but oddly enough, for me the book didn’t really start moving until the investigation of the crash began in Washington about ten pages later. Sure, Freveletti’s hero, Emma Caldridge, is in immediate danger after the crash as terrorists move in to take the surviving passengers hostage – and as Emma manages to avoid capture – but the intrigue that unfolds in D.C. is what fascinated me most. There are many players in this complicated political scenario, between the different terrorist factions, the United States Department of Defense, Emma’s father, the State Department, Darkview (an American mercenary group, here really the good guys), the Colombian government, Emma’s employer, and the Air Tunnel Denial program. Each group has its own agenda, and the agenda of many seems to be to get Emma for one reason or another. Emma is on her own in the jungle, without weapons, without food or water, without a compass, and with no ability to speak the native language; the land is mined; and she has a mission that goes beyond her own personal survival.

Emma is a strong and resourceful woman, and she never, ever gives up. A chemist with a specialty in plant biology, she uses her knowledge to survive in the jungle, as well as to save the lives of others along the way – occasionally in a manner that will make your stomach turn but also fascinate you. In fact, Freveletti’s use of chemical lore is one of the very best things about this book. You’ll learn things about jimsonweed you probably never knew, and chances are you’ve never even heard of the neem tree before, not to mention what its leaves can do. Fortunately, Emma isn’t too good to be true; she doesn’t know how to use weapons, for instance, and her emotions sometimes cause her to make mistakes. She isn’t superwoman.

Supporting characters may have a bit more cardboard to them; Cameron Sumner, another downed passenger, seems too good to be true, not to mention Edward Banner, one of the mercenaries. Luis Rodrigo is as evil a villain as you’ll find outside of Marvel Comics, completely irrational and probably insane. But there are a few minor characters who seem to be perfect little cameos. I got a big kick out of Gladys Sullivan, another passenger who has heart trouble but insists on smoking as many cigarettes as she can get her hands on. Maria, an indigenous woman who loves red lipstick, is beautifully drawn. Miguel Gonzalez, who runs a special operations response force sent to rescue the passengers, is a good, competent soldier.

Freveletti’s novel has some typical debut thriller faults: a reliance on clichés to get a point across (“she felt as though fate had thrown her a bone”; “The man dropped like a stone”). Sometimes, though, Freveletti uses language to create a picture so vivid that a scene comes to life right before your eyes (“The highest-ranking members of the army, navy, air force, and marines fiddled with legal pads, flipped pencils in the air, and sipped coffee from china cups that they held like mugs, ignoring the elegant, curved handles” – that detail about how they hold the cups is just brilliant).

The language isn’t the point, though, and the clichés fall away as you get deeper into the book and the plot absolutely takes over. Soon it doesn’t seem like you’re reading at all; it’s more as if the book is being transmitted directly into your brain, and you see it all played out cinematically. This book would make a great movie, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear that it’s been optioned.

So: buy this one and head for your hammock. Memorial Day weekend will be here before you know it, and reading this book would be a fine way to spend one afternoon of your three-day break.

Full disclosure: way back when, from about 1989 until February 1993, Jamie Freveletti and I were members of the same law firm (which is now defunct). I left the firm to move out-of-state, and have seen Jamie in the flesh only once since then. We’ve been in sporadic contact over the years, and I consider her a friend even now, but I learned about the publication of Running from the Devil only by reading about it in the trade press. I’ve done my best to write an objective review. You have my word that I wouldn’t have written anything at all if I didn’t truly enjoy the book. show less

Where I got the book: freebie at a networking event.

I should start out by announcing that I do NOT read thrillers, so my rating reflects my ignorance of the genre. Jamie Freveletti is a) a hugely popular bestseller, and b) I've met her and like her. My 3 stars will not make a dent in her popularity, and I'm glad of it.

Plot: Emma Caldridge stumbles across a drug gang whose marijuana crop is afflicted with a disease that transmits itself to humans. Trying to get clear of the situation, she is show more caught between the drug overlord, the law enforcement authorities gunning for him, an attractive but somewhat hapless accessory and the mysterious disease.

OK I can see why people like these books; the pace is set at a steady 100 miles per hour and never lets up till ALL OF A SUDDEN, right at the end, it's all over bar a few significant glances between male and female characters and that's it, really. For 95% of the novel Emma is on the move, being chased, shot at, hunted, whatever. Grenades, drugs, bad guys, headcases, it's all go go go. I'm worn out just writing about it. I was totally in the mood for this kind of reading for much of this book, being thoroughly cheesed off with Things in General, and in those circumstances found the easy page-turning effect of constant forward motion soothing.

Emma, of course, is perfect: she can run 100 miles without barely breaking a sweat and generally knows what to do in every situation. Especially since the situations (I'm partway into another of Freveletti's books) often involve putting her into a chemical lab, where she is an expert genius whizzkid marvel. All the men desire her, other women fade into the background, yada yada yada. OK, that's pretty much it.

You see what I mean when I said I don't get this genre? Give me credit for trying. show less