When Chris Pavone’s Two Nights in Lisbon was initially published in hardcover last May, there was a great deal of pre-release hype behind it. I got a print galley, a digital galley, and then a finished copy of the novel — which all came to me by the publisher without much prompting on my part if I’m recalling things correctly. Thus, it seemed like the publisher was particularly interested in promoting this one quite heavily from my perspective. But that’s not all. The book was generously blurbed, and quite gushingly, by several A-list American authors, including John Grisham, Stephen King, and Megan Abbott. Grisham and King, in particular, trumpeted the fact that this was a novel that you couldn’t put down. Indeed, this is a bit of a page-turner — if you don’t mind thinking about taking a nice hot shower as you read this. The thing with Two Nights in Lisbon is that it is more than just an effective thriller: it has something important to say and the ultimate subject matter of this novel is quite unsavory as it might be topical. I don’t want to reveal too much for those who have yet to wade into this book, but, suffice to say, I found myself putting it aside at certain moments because the real crime presented within it is so repellant and distasteful, if not violent, that I needed to take a break from the mechanization of this tome’s harrowing plot.

The novel is about a newlywed couple who are vacationing, sort of, in Lisbon, Portugal. I say sort of because it is also something of a business trip for the groom, John. However, he goes missing one morning and his wife Ariel immediately goes to both the police and the American embassy to get them on the case. Neither, of course, is of very much help to her. Then, she receives a phone call: it turns out that John has been kidnapped and Ariel has 48 hours to pull together three million euros in ransom to have him returned to her alive. Ariel, of course, doesn’t have that kind of money, but she happens to know people in her social circles who might. That is, of course, if they want to help her out — and they might have their reasons for not wanting to. And thus begins a bit of a cat-and-mouse game of double-crosses and requisite plot twists, and, naturally, the CIA winds up getting involved — which shouldn’t be saying too much as this is something mentioned near the beginning of this book.

Does that sound like a good premise for a thriller? It does to me, too. However, Two Nights in Lisbon veers off into unpredictable territory even though you can kind of figure out what’s likely to happen before it happens. This doesn’t make the book a less-than-stellar read; quite the contrary. This is a well-done slow burn, and the novel does go into important territory that has been covered by many thrillers being released these days: those that detail violence that is implicit against women. To that end, Pavone does a masterful job of creating a believable female protagonist who is quite vulnerable, but who does her fair share of fighting back against all sorts of injustices that are done to her. That’s probably the big selling point of this novel and what makes it so immensely readable. Having said that, though, this is also a challenging read because the book’s subject matter is bound to make readers quite uncomfortable. Thus, Two Nights in Lisbon is not an easy book to take. While it is a relatively quick to flip through even at being more than 400 pages in length (and it is a quick read because of its semi-predictability, which is a pleasure of its own and keeps the narrative moving), it could have been trimmed just a little bit. It feels a little overlong, with an epilogue that feels a bit tacked on to give this book a mercifully happy ending. (Or as happy of an ending as you could expect from a book such as this. This is not to say that I’m not happy it ends the way it does, but these characters really go through the wringer and there could have been, perhaps, a little less of that in the lead-up to the end.)

In the end, I’m not sure how far I would go in recommending Two Nights in Lisbon as a must-read novel. It is very well done, but it made me squirm. The writing is top drawer for being genre fiction— flaws are damned. And the book does have them: you can’t think of the twists and turns too hard, or the plot kind of comes undone. Without meaning to spoil anything, it turns out that the kidnappers go to an awful lot of trouble just to achieve their ends — though, at the same time, they must go to the lengths they go to. (For this reason, I guess I’m of two minds about this book.) In any event, perfection is always hard to come by, so we should be very satisfied with the care and craft that Pavone has put into this novel about the ugliness of American society and how women tend to get treated within it. Overall, Two Nights in Lisbon is going to appeal to readers who like their thrillers to thrill, but perhaps not too much. Me? I liked this, but didn’t love it — and the reason is that I now feel as though I have to have that hot shower to rinse away the griminess of the major crime that is ultimately revealed here. Two Nights in Lisbon is worth a look, but just be prepared to go against what those A-list writers were raving about. This is a novel you’ll want to put down. You’ll need to just get through the repulsiveness of the female protagonist’s unfavorable experiences throughout this troubling yet searing work of genre fiction.

***Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and @netgalley for gifting me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.***

I’ve never read a book that had made me SO angry.

The book jacket description is that Ariel wakes up in Lisbon to find her new husband, John, missing the morning after they arrive for a business trip/short vacation. She comes to believe that he is kidnapped. The Lisbon police and the American embassy don’t believe her. She knows very little about her new husband or his business dealings. She finally gets the ransom request and she has to go to the person she never wants to talk to again for help.

Cool. Sounds like a great, quick beach read. Big ‘ol nope.

TW: This is a book about rape and sexual assault pretending to be a book about a kidnapping. Actual rape on the page. I would have never would have read this if the description had been honest.

Honestly, this whole book read like the author was waving his arms around screaming “Hey, look at me! I’m a white man and I totally understand what women go through!”

By the time the book ended, I thought that the story kind of worked. And the aftermath of everything was really interesting. But the book is too long and it drags in many places. Ariel goes on too many mental tangents about whatever political/social issue she feels the need to vent about. She goes off about the fluid definition of the word “literally.” It’s like girl, your husband has just been kidnapped, but please do go off about how big pick up trucks are the bullies of the road. So much of its unnecessary. It’s also really manipulative.

I’m not saying this isn’t for everyone, but it certainly wasn’t for me. But here’s the thing - if the description were more accurate about its intentions, I would have never picked this book up in the first place.

Ariel and her husband, John, travel to Lisbon on one of his business trips. One morning, Ariel wakes up, and her husband is gone. She contacts local authorities, but she is unable to answer some of their questions. When Ariel gets a ransom demand for John, she has to come up with the money, and that means turning to someone she was hoping to never have contact with again.

Two Nights in Lisbon has a complex and multilayered plot that took time to build. The twists and turns were unexpected, which is always enjoyable. A good read for fans of tense and suspenseful thrillers.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone is a twisty slow-burn thriller with an international setting (see title). The pacing could have been a little faster for my taste, but I'll look forward to more from this author.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

Ariel Pryce has accompanied her new husband on his business trip to Lisbon, but he is shocked one morning to find that he is suddenly missing. She can’t reach him by phone, and she struggles to be take seriously by the Portuguese authorities. At this point, it’s hard to know how to classify this novel. Is it going to be one of those does-she-really-know-her-husband psychological suspense books? A kidnap drama? One of those stories like in the movies where no one takes the woman seriously or even believes the guy ever existed? In the end, it’s all of these things, but mostly it’s a twisty thriller about a woman using whatever leverage she has—in a country where she doesn’t speak the language—to get her husband back. The characters are colorful and interesting, and Ariel’s desperation drives the story forward. It’s convoluted enough (and long enough) that you start imagining all kinds of crazy scenarios but aren’t sure until near the end which of them will pan out.

Thanks to Netgalley and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for a digital advance review copy.

International thrillers with spies at the centre are all too common. But one affecting a single mother, newly married, while on a trip to another continent where she doesn’t know the local language, promised non-stop action and excitement.

Ariel Pryce wakes up in her hotel room in Lisbon, the morning after a night of passion, to find her new husband, John Wright, gone. Still harbouring doubts about her second marriage to a much younger man, her worries turn to panic.

The local police in Lisbon think it’s too early to consider him missing. The embassy won’t take her seriously. He’s not in any hospital either.

As the day wears on, Ariel is beside herself with worry. And then she learns that her husband has been kidnapped, and that the kidnappers want three million euros as ransom. Ariel doesn’t have so much money. But there is one door she can knock on. A man in the US, over whom she has leverage. He must either pay the ransom or rescue her husband or prepare for destruction as she reveals all.

Will the ploy serve to bring back her husband? Or will she lose him anyway?



The book is written in a mix of tenses. The narrative is presented to us at various points through the day. While the bulk of the narrative is set in Lisbon, we also get snippets of Ariel’s life in the US, past and present.

The narrative is divided into five parts: The Disappearance, The Kidnapping, The Ransom, The Escape and The Payoff. The author tosses us from one character to another, giving us the chance to learn their truths and lies, as the search for John gets underway.

Little by little, we learn more about Ariel, her habits, her past. She doesn’t, it appears, know her husband all that well. At the same time, we learn that we too have a lot to learn about her. And we learn those things as the CIA, the embassy and the reporter all tear down the persona she has so carefully put together.



Even the minor characters feel real. There’s Kayla Jefferson and Guido Antonucci of the CIA, and Pete Wagstaff, the reporter in Lisbon. Guido is a relic of the past, like his name which might be recycled, freshened up with a sheen of irony.

The writing is sharp and insightful, the metaphors heightening the reading experience. Sentences of uneven length keep us riveted.

Here’s a sample:

As if the mere fact that something is traditional makes it admirable, or defensible. The same exact justification has been used for pretty much all the injustice in the history of the world. We in India are suffering the insidious, corrosive effects of the government’s insistence on fetishizing tradition.

Everybody becomes respectable, sooner or later. Unless they go to jail. Or die.

Sometimes what looks like panic is really rational self-preservation.

You want to believe that there’s only one reality and that we all share it.

The descriptions of people, more judgmental than physical, were my favourite. A platinum-level jackass who sprayed venom like a lawn sprinkler, drenching everything in his toxic masculinity.

A giant pickup is [like a schoolyard bully.

About millennials, Her generation’s default was irony.

These traits that we admire and envy – youth and beauty and privilege – these are not accomplishments.

Fanatic, dogmatic dedication to your community is not what makes anyone a good person.

There’s a delicious sense of irony and plainspeak as when we learn that Ariel’s new baby didn’t come with any instructions, but her electric toothbrush came with a 32-page booklet, and about the lexicon of grievance so popular in the world today.

The description of life, as realized by Ariel, realizing again and again how wrong you used to be.

I reserve my biggest chunk of appreciation for the omniscient narrator who knows such things that women’s faces harden instinctively to dissuade the male gaze. At the end of Part II there was a section on how gaslighting works, written in such crisp prose that it clawed at my heart. The narrator seemingly enters the minds of dogs and kids with equal felicity.

I loved the smattering of Portuguese, rooting the book in Lisbon. The author helps us settle into the locale, giving us a feel of the charms of the city, its buildings and people, the heat of the city, the crazy driving.



I enjoyed this book as much for the story as for the writing.

The twisty premise after newlywed Ariel wakes up to find her new husband missing was sparked in part by the infamous 2016 footage of Donald Trump bragging about committing sexual assault as a sort of hobby. The footage was received by a largely indifferent America, which would go on to elect him as president. Pavone’s set-up explores how society enables predators and limits justice for victims with this premise in a truly fresh and unexpected (at least for this seasoned domestic suspense reader) corkscrew plot—to say any more would spoil the extremely clever fun.

Ariel lives a nightmare as her husband is kidnapped in a foreign country. Police, the embassy, language barrier cause her additional turmoil.

I could not finish this book. I think it was a mix of not the right time for me to pick this one up, and I was not hooked enough by the suspense.

3.5 stars I wanted to like this one more than I did. I think I just couldn't get invested in the relationship and the story but still think its a cool book. Thanks to FSG/MCD for the arc for my honest review.

I can't believe I didn't read this in hardcover when it first came out. They are a lot of voices here in the missing husband scenario including me too and other feminist underpinnings. I found it an exciting and compelling read.

A slow burn thriller that takes you through a lot of twists and turns until you find out the truth. Arielle is in Lisbon with her new husband when he mysteriously disappears. While the hunt for john goes on we learn about Arielles back story which is pretty terrible as she been subjected to multiple sexual assaults. I felt like some of the holes in the story tripped me up a bit but overall it was entertaining and hard to put down.

3 stars! Two Nights in Lisbon was a mixed bag. The plot was enjoyable but it felt like it was entirely too long of a read.
Thank you to Chris Pavone, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

As a mystery/thriller of the “unreliable narrators” genre made popular by Gone Girl and the like, Two Nights in Lisbon delivers terrific nuance at a fast pace, and just enough nuggets to let you think your guess may just be right before tugging the rug from under you. Throw in well-placed snippets of Ariel’s backstory and timely attention to current social issues, it’s a multi-layered story that hardly misses a beat.

This book is an excellent thriller. You know you think you know someone and everything about them then.... Ariel wakes up in LIsbon all alone. Her husband is nowhere to be found and he's not answering his phone. Panicked Ariel checks with hotel security to try to find out what has happened to her husband but when that doesn't yield any clues she goes to the police and the American Embassy. She is bombarded with questions she can't answer like why was your husband here and why did she come? Ariel is frustrated and terrified when she can't get help and can't find her husband anywhere. Can Ariel find her husband in time and unwind this mystery?

This is a story about the long game.

This book captured so much of the simmering rage I’ve felt as a woman in the world & I’m so surprised that it was was written by a man. The narrative was suspenseful, with perfect plotted twists and beautiful execution. This is a book about justice, and the difficulty inherent in obtaining it. I don’t know why it took me so long to read it, but I’m so happy that I did.

Thank you so much @netgalley & MCD for the eArc!

Definitely enjoyed this mystery with lots of twists and turns, however the only critique id have is the length. It is a very long book and I feel I good have taken some unnecessary parts out and made the book have the length and still have all the essential info

I originally picked up this title when I found out that it was set in Portugal, but this did not keep me hooked like i thought it would. It was an interesting enough premise, but it was not anything too different from the books I have read so many times before. That being said, I would still recommend it to someone looking for something like this.

This book called me due to its setting, Lisbon, Portugal. I enjoyed this thriller, it had good twists and kept me intrigued. My only negative was that it felt a bit long in parts. Perhaps if I had read it in a few sittings instead of a few pages at a time this wouldn’t have been my response.

I’ve read two of Pavone’s books now and would also consider any future ones.
Thank you Farrer, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange of my honest review.

Another great read from Chris Pavone. Twists that I didn't expect, with great characters, pacing, and story. Haven't had a bad one yet from Mr. Pavone. #TwoNightsinLisbon #NetGalley