Oblivion

by Peter Abrahams

Book Overview

Nick Petrov was a world-famous private investigator -- until a brain trauma destroyed part of his memory and changed who he is forever. Now a killer is on the loose, looming up from a past that Nick... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060726571
• ISBN13: 9780060726577
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Best yet!

I haven't yet found an Abrahams book I didn't like! This may very well be his best work so far. Like "The Fan" and his other books, this one's hard to put down. The plot does take unexpected twists and turns but never once did I feel I was suspending my disbelief. Nick Petrov is likable and evokes a sadness given the state of his life. It's amazing how Abrahams can get into the heads of a variety of characters from baseball players to exotic dancers to private investigators making them all convincing. A must read.

brahams Do s It Ag in

Peter Abrahams has done it again, this time presenting a new kind of thriller in which a tough guy private eye begins losing some of his faculties, and we the readers know more than he does about just about everything. I can only think of one previous novel which so deftly explored the inner demons of someone losing their memory, and that was Peter Dickinson's thriller ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE, in which the detective hero found himself in an old age home and, although barely able to keep it together, made one more triumphant leap into deduction (and action) to keep one last crime at bay. Nick, the hero of OBLIVION, isn't a very nice guy, and only through losing something (his memories of a "lost weekend" during which he began investigating a case of a runaway girl) does he come to his senses morally speaking. His difficult relationship with his estranged son, Dmitri, and his nagging love for a former wife who walked out on him when she found him cheating with a partner--these relationships change as Nick finds it within himself to change and to try imagining how others may feel for once. This brings up all sorts of satisfying speculations on what is the nature of personality? Is it something consistent, essentialist, that doesn't change, or is it entirely a mode of chemical behavior? One little side note, I loved the TV movie of the week that was made out of Nick's work on the Reasoner case. Abrahams has the casting down pat--Armand Assante as himself, Kim Delaney (herself the troubled good girl for whom America still cherishes a soft spot) and Dennis Franz, Delaney's co-star on NYPD Blue, as the mad serial killer Gerald Reasoner. I'd watch it, and hate myself in the morning! But reading OBLIVION you just crawl out on some primitive branch of pleasure like an ocelot, and soak in the sun. Kudos also to the book designer, who uses numbers and capital letters with parts of them melted off, to parallel Nick's fading memories.

Great writer

This is my first Abrahams novel; I was extremely impressed. So much so I am going to buy a few more. Though the mystery is quite good, it is less about the mystery itself and more about the writing and characters and how all the information comes out. The main character, Petrov, is one of the most complex and sympathetic detectives I have come across. I don't want to say more, as part of the pleasure of the book, if you know nothing, is how everything unfolds. Buy and enjoy.

One of the best thrillers of the year

I have to say right away that this was one of the best books I've read this year. And believe it or not it has nothing to do with a plot that in other writer's hands would have been a mild and predictable story. The great thing about "Oblivion" is they way it is narrated. Abrahams chooses the third person single vision style, telling the story from the point-of-view of his detective Nick Petrov. The novel stats as a regular clever noir story, Petrov is quick with one-liners, a smart guy with good instincts. Then he starts behaving erratically. The genial part of the book is the third person POV is the POV of a brain-damaged person. Petrov is sick. He never realises how much. Soon we are way ahead of him, and he doesn't have a clue, he's a mix between the guy from Memento and the blind character played by Audrey Hepburn in Wait until dark, the suspense is built in waiting for the character to get it, we can forsee the danger, but he doesn't. Abrahams succeeds creating a clever interesting deep character in Petrov. His misgivings, and the way his mind works are the best points of his prose. He's able to create a background story, one of those usually mentioned as flashbacks to add depth into characters, and then transform it into a very important part of the plot, and he does it cleverly slow. Creeping on us. Highly recommended.

Fans of the movie Memento will love this book!

When I first picked up this book, I never expected to finish it in one day! Main character Nick Petrov is a famous private detective, and I found myself quickly drawn into Nick's newest case and then the mysterious events of his own life which follow. Using a technique reminiscent of the movie Memento, author Abrahams introduces memory loss into the plot and then has Nick work backwards to reconstruct the events of his life that he has forgotten. I especially liked how the author clues the reader into part of the mystery while Nick remains in the dark; as the story progresses, however, Nick and the reader piece together the remainder of the puzzle together. In sum, this book's unique premise kept me thoroughly interested and engaged.