Here is what I think, JUST READ EVERYTHING BY THOMAS PERRY! I have never been disappointed and this one is no different. It is technical without going overboard and most of all suspenseful; every part drives to the "explosive" climax. Read this and you will never look at everything as quite as "safe" as before.

This is a tense, action packed thriller. It had a gripping plot; great characterisation and was full of surprise and suspense leading to an explosive ending. I really enjoyed it.

Cat-and-mouse tales are some of the oldest--and most enjoyable--stories in the mystery/thriller genre. Thomas Perry, who wrote one my favorite novels so far in 2017 (THE OLD MAN) presents a fresh take on the chase theme with THE BOMB MAKER. One of the best parts of the story is the highly detailed and thoughtful tradecraft presented. The mystery writer James W. Hall wrote an excellent book dissecting some of the biggest best sellers in history, and one of the elements central to all of those books was that they presented the reader with copious amounts of information to which the reader would not typically be privy. Perry does an excellent job here of placing the reader in the mind of a topnotch law enforcement professional. In this case, it is Dick Stahl, a former Bomb Squad commander who has since moved on to operate his own private security company. When most of his former squad are wiped out by the bomb of ingenious and deadly bomb maker, Stahl jumps in to offer his expertise. The rest of the book is the cat-and-mouse scenario I mentioned. This is an exhilarating, fast-paced, high tension read. And, of great relief, Perry doesn't skimp on the characterization either. Every character in this novel comes to life. This is top shelf crime fiction.

This Arc was provided courtesy of NetGalley. Many thanks to Grove Atlantic - The Mysterious Press for making this pre-release available.

Welcome to the sleazy underground world of a criminal bomb maker. A leech of society. The author guided me through a well written, real world scenario of the many ways a bomb could be made and deployed. Hundreds of ways. Perhaps more. It's only limiting factor would be the bomb makers imagination. Scary. The main character of the story, Dick Stahl came well-developed. It was an intriguing narrative that held my undivided attention.

A bomber's on the loose in the streets of Los Angeles. Not just any run-of-the-mill bomber. An expert. He had been recruited by a terrorist organization for his nefarious skill. Part of the deal was for him to kill off members of the LAPD bomb squad. His only requirement from his sponsors - MONEY.

He was meticulous in his creative design and construction. Even made his own explosive material from scratch. Extremely risky and dangerous. The bomb techniques were an extension of his vivid imagination. There seemed no end in sight to what he was capable of devising. He was a master at his craft. A psychopath mind at work.

Tim Watkins was called to the scene. He was the Commander of the LAPD bomb squad. A threat had been called in by an anonymous source to 911. A house was going to be blown up. Something about the caller sounded believable. It was worth investigating. The bomb unit responded. A careful search of the house was conducted. It had been booby-trapped. Explosive charges in strategic points began to go off. The house imploded upon itself. Now a pile of stucco and wood. The bomb technician just barely made it out in time. He survived. Unbeknownst to them, the bomber was not finished.

Half of the LAPD bomb squad was on scene. They gathered and began to carefully sift through the rubble for unexploded ordnance. They never got very far. It too had been booby-trapped. A dynamic explosion that originated from underneath the house shook the earth. A massive explosion. Fourteen members of the elite LAPD bomb squad were killed instantly. The worst police disaster in the nation's history. Mission accomplished.

Retired, former LAPD bomb squad Commander Dick Stahl had been paid a visit by LAPD Deputy Chief Ogden. Stahl ran his own successful security company. The city of Los Angeles needed his expertise. He was the best of the best. When he was with the bomb squad, his name became Legend. He had trained and knew many of the deceased in the disaster. He was more than eager to volunteer his assistance.

For the next two days in a row, Stahl diffused two more sophisticated
bombs that had been planted in strategic places. They too had been cleverly booby-trapped. Any other bomb technician on the scene would have probably been killed. Luck was with him. Stahl was quickly using up his nine lives. By now, the bomb makers intentions were clear. Eliminate the bomb squad. To do this, he had to come up with better ways of deploying and booby-trapping his bombs. Stahl had been getting in the way and needed to be taken out of the picture.

An intimate relationship developed between Stahl and one of his underlings of his squad, Sergeant Diane Hines. According to strict policy, they knew it had to remain secret. The bomb maker had learned of her address. There was a surprise waiting for her when she got home. Upon her arrival, she realized she activated a timer for a bomb directly overhead. With only a couple of seconds to react, she scrambled behind heavy furniture for cover. She survived the blast but was critically injured. She'd remained hospitalized in a medically coma for over a month.

The bomb maker was feeling desperate now. This Stahl character was interfering with his plans. He needed to be more creative. The sooner he killed off the remainder of the bomb squad, the sooner he'd get his money. A big payday. Ten million dollars. But not if Stahl could help it. He was obsessed with taking down the bomb maker. One of them had to go. Only one would live to tell the tale.

A great read, meticulously researched with a ticking pace that never lets up.

An explosive thriller!

A truly gripping piece of work – while Dick Stahl, the main protagonist, is first introduced as a hostage negotiator/recovery agent – he absolutely shines as the guy appointed to head up a depleted LAPD Bomb Squad after a booby-trapped call-out kills half of the squad.

This action in itself, did not sit entirely easily with me, as the main mantra of all EOD personnel is to expect that the first device is just a teaser; to bring in more first responders that can be targeted by a second, more treacherous device.

That apart, the book fair rattled along, (with a side-helping of romantic entanglement with one of his staff) as he and the team overcame the complexities of the bomb makers’ creations.

My only niggle with this book, was that the finale was a bit of an anti-climax … all a bit rushed; why did the bomber act as he did? What was the main goal of his backers?

However, the way does seem to be open for further outings by Stahl and his lover – and I look forward to this possibility.

Good plot and good character development, like all of the author's books. However, the descriptions of the bombs and their triggering mechanisms are overly long and complex and I think that they will turn off many non-technical readers. Also, his description of the trigger device used in the school bomb makes no sense electrically.

Thank you for Netgalley for the preview of the Bomb Maker by Thomas Perry. The Bomb Maker is a stand alone book with new characters. Perry's Jane Whitfield is very much missed and I wish he would write another series book. The Bomb Maker centers around the team of bomb technicians, and in particular Dick Stahl, who disable devices that basically blow up. A man is out there who wants to target all the bomb technicians and the reason is unknown; he aims to do this single handedly.
The Bomb Maker is a change in Perry's writing and although I liked this book, I didn't love it. There is alot of technical jargon and I did get lost with that. Fans of Thomas Perry will read this one, but anxiously await the return of Jane or even the old man...

Author Thomas Perry sets for himself the difficult task of educating the reader about a variety of bombs and the way to neutralize them while at the same time keeping a level of suspense that carries the readers' interest. I don't know much about bombs, and will likely forget what I learned here. The novel is not a bomb. It's a tightly conceived thriller with a little romance tucked in for relief. It does take some effort to bear with the story while those bombs get defused, but it is worth it as the story takes hold and we go on the adventure that the main character, Dick Stahl, leads Recommended. Thanks NetGalley for the ARC.

This is a book that will keep you up all night, Literally. The print copies should come with reading lights built- in! A.crazed explosives expert is intent on taking out all of LAPD's bomb squad- everyone in the squad. And methodically, horrifically goes about it, until a highly credentialed, experienced,former LAPD bomb squad member is asked to step back in. And the intense nerve tingling war of outwitting the Bomb Maker ensues. I would have given this 4 stars but felt there was a lack of resolution after final confrontation. But that doesn't ruin the heart of the novel which if you like thrillers you'll be drawn into this one. I'd like to thank Mysterious Press for an ARC through NetGalley.

The Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit of the LAPD is an elite group like no other. These brave men and women put their lives on the line every day. When half of the bomb squad is killed by a particularly well-designed bomb, the City is in shock. It is only after former bomb squad commander Dick Stahl is recruited to be the commander once again on an interim basis that the police realize that the bomber is apparently targeting the bomb squad, making each new bomb a little more clever than the last. The bomber becomes more and more frustrated as Stahl and his team fail to fall into his traps time and time again. At the same time, Stahl becomes romantically involved with a team member, which puts her at risk and affects his judgment where she is concerned. When she narrowly escapes death one day and then manages to survive the bombing of her hospital floor, Stahl becomes even more determined to stop the bomber before the city becomes totally gripped in fear.

The Bomb Maker by Thomas Perry is a dark journey inside the mind of a killer that few authors have successfully created. Perry is an accomplished author, having garnered both an Edgar and a Barry Award for two of his previous novels. The Bomb Maker takes the reader both into the mind of a mad bomber and the squad of officers who show up when called to safely dispose of explosive devices, often risking their own lives in the process. The novel brings to mind such individuals as the Unibomber, which those of us of a certain age will remember or the D. C. Sniper of more recent memory. With it’s well-rounded characters and fast-moving plot, this novel gets 4/5 stars from me.

**An electronic copy of this book was the only consideration received in exchange for my review.**

Perry is a master stylist and a consistently great thriller writer. The Bomb Squad which pits someone only known as the bomb maker against a retired bomb squad expert and his love interest, a female on the bomb squad, is an exciting story with lots of twists and a surprise ending. Though not Perry's best book, it still is a book that you should read....soon!

Los Angeles has plenty of room for the variety of crime writers who stake their claims, various, for the Serve and Protect agencies. Thomas Perry’s LA has the usual run of cops and detectives, firefighters and other specialists, but his basic subject here is the bomb squad’s extraordinary men and women whose job it is to detect, neutralise, defuse, or, detonate the improvised and crafted killing machines that have become a feature of modern life. The title of the book is a direction, and its triple opening contains what comes to seem almost banal when juxtaposed with what follows: first, the anonymous bomb maker, proud of his abilities. He is expecting to earn many millions of dollars from his new campaign. Then, a change of venue, as the call comes to the Bomb Squad, deployed to an uninhabited house, and the carnage of a bomb. The third strand is a different modern scourge, a mere kidnapping, in the course of which the security expert, Richard Stahl (who will become central male character) has to execute criminals in order to lift a victim from what might have been thought to be the kidnappers’ safe house. So one might think Stahl belongs to another story altogether, but not at all, and not because his success in Mexico reveals that the local police are taking their cut of the ransom money. Stahl returns home, then goes to work, and a whole other part of his life returns, because of the horrible incident in which an anonymous bomb maker displays his skills and his intent. It is far from the last we see of him, but it is a long time before we see him.
Perry has the story-teller’s great gift of knowing what not to tell: what little we know of the bomb maker we learn through the intricate detail of his work, just as we learn from the Bomb Squad--and Stahl in particular--the minute movements that attempt to keep them alive. In England after the Grenfell tower fire, in Europe more generally, sentences which contain ‘so if I die you’ll still know what I was thinking’ cannot help but resonate. There is a long breath-holding description of Stahl, still strong at 44, walking fifty pounds of Semtex held against the front of his body, to the concreted emptiness of the LA River to detonate it. Stahl takes no notes, but he’s observing what the bomb maker’s habits are. Suspense arises from these slow surveys of creating and evading death, including descriptions of the robots, the suits, the equipment, and, above all the choices. What explanations we get come at some distance from the events we might want explained. What we don’t get explanations for remain mysteries. Short-sentence accumulation of detail is characteristic thriller territory.
There is much more, not necessarily in such great detail, but, like the best writers, Perry's extravagance of invention is always serving his overall purpose; that is, some writers write too much, thinking they solidify background, but Perry's ability to see from different characters' points of view makes his apparent superfluities always relevant to his story. That includes his ability to mix humour and tragedy. One fine example in this book riffs on news anchors: Perry has many of the same reservations about cable news that many people do. I can’t expand on that statement, but I will mention two things: one, that there’s a leak about what’s happening in the department which complicates Stahl’s temporary position. Second, the pompous and self-serving Mayor of LA and the police attitude to this powerful man who refuses to take any chances on this temporary appointee who has been saving lives because the leak makes him—this mayor—potentially liable to suits, even years ahead. The convergences with Amazon Prime’s Bosch series suggest attitudes to bureaucracy that are familiar everywhere, especially in the self-deception of those in power.

I really tried to read this book. It has some good elements but something was missing. The bomb information I think, went on too much and took away from the storyline. Thank you for the opportunity to read this.

When a bomb goes off and kills 14 members of the LAPD bomb squad Dick Stahl is called out of retirement to help out. This bomb maker is targeting the bomb squad and Stahl has to try to stop the bomber while hiding the relationship he is forming with an attractive member of his team. The premise of the book is great, the pace spot on but I was disappointed in the conclusion. It appeared rushed after all the great lead up. A good book but could have been better.