I know channel surfing is becoming a thing of the past as more and more of us are moving to streaming at will, but I'll date myself and admit I'm still a frequent surfer. And when I'm bouncing around the dial (for the kids reading: a dial is what we used to have to physically move on the tv to change channels) there are a few movies that will always make me stop and watch. One of those? Die Hard starring Bruce Willis as a New York cop loose in a skyscraper where terrorists have taken his wife and a bunch of her co-workers hostage. He's alone and fighting against incredible odds to make sure that the terrorists are stopped and his wife is saved. It's not the first time the "loner against the world" plot was used in a thriller (check out just about any of Clint Eastwood's movies in the 70s), but it has become one of the most memorable. And that kind of plot? Catnip for me. Enter Daniel Pyne's Water Memory.
Aubrey Sentro is a black ops extraction specialist who has taken one too many blows to the head over the course of her secretive, dangerous career and is now suffering the consequences of those traumatic brain injuries. When an operation almost goes wrong because of her memory issues, she takes a leave of absence to figure out what may be next. And to the shock of her two adult children (who have no idea what she actually does for her job), she books a spot on a cargo ship as a passenger for a bare bones, leisurely cruise.** Her plans for recovering and regrouping are disrupted - as you may have guessed given my intro - when pirates attack and seize control of the ship and passengers. And that's when Aubrey gets back to work.
I've seen some reviews mentioning the slow build in the first section of the novel. Fair point, but not something that bothered me. I enjoyed the time spent getting us into Aubrey's chaotic head space so that when she does get busy taking out some pirates? I believed she would and could. And past that first section? When the action does get going? It doesn't stop until the end.
**I've never had much desire to take a cruise in a floating hotel, but now that I know that being a passenger on a cargo ship is a thing? I may change my mind about the cruising life.