Burning Bright (A Peter Ash Novel)

I liked the book and the characters. The story was OK. I'd read his next one. The last 100 pages or soo could have been consolidated to like 40. It was a bit boring at the end. I'm hopeful Nick can make an impact. One issue is that Peter has severe PTSD but has no problem sleeping. In my experience people with PTSD don't sleep well. Anyway, while waiting for the next Lee Child or Daniel Silva, its worth the time to read the book.

Best thriller in awhile for me. Peter Ash comes across as a believable person and not just an indestructible machine. I like the way the book ends. I will definitely be reading the the 1st in the series The Drifter.

I came across The Drifter when looking at the Edgar nominees. The book was well written and enjoyable, inhabited by vividly defined characters. Burning Bright was a treat to look forward to. Boy was I disappointed. "G-men" (term sometimes used 5 times on a page) and inane characters peopled this book. After the new female lead has been incapacitated by a stun gun and kidnapped she describes herself as "pissed" Really?? Then she says that he is leering as though he will ask her out to dinner. By the next paragraph, he is described a s a potential date rapist.Somehow she escapes and eventually climbs a giant redwood. Peter also arrives in the tree, while being shots by the "g-men "on the ground. When he climbs down to see what they are doing, she thinks to herself "I know you are approaching your sexual peak, honey, but really?" Such stupid commentary on a woman's possible thoughts. I have made it to page 82 but do not have the will power to force my way through the rest. Petrie ascribes to be Lee Child, and can write action scenes, but dialog and thought processes - dreadful. So disappointing.

I write as one who was enthralled with Nick Petrie's first effort, The Drifter, but I find it hard to believe this mediocre thriller was written by the same person. In the first book, the prose felt so spare and simple and honest, and he seemed to be the true heir to the Hemingway-esque school of thriller writers once represented by Lee Child. Peter Ash was an utterly unique protagonist and his struggles with PTSD were vividly rendered--as was the gritty urban setting. In this second book, he abandons almost everything that made The Drifter so special. Ash becomes a typical thriller half-character, and his affliction a mere annoyance. He expands the story to include vast conspiracies and shadowy government agencies, thereby losing all of the intimacy. Worst of all, he introduces a female lead whom he seems unprepared to inhabit as a writer--in trying to create June, he lapses into the worst Nancy Drew cliches: she's always "wrinkling her nose" or "sticking out her tongue" or saying something with "a (insert your adjective) grin." The Drifter was a treasure to come home to each night. Burning Bright was a disappointing slog I got through, sticking with it only out of respect for the writer I know Nick Petrie can be.

This book really grabbed my attention from the start with almost non-stop excitement. It almost felt like I had been thrown into an action movie and I loved every minute of it. Before I even knew it, I had read a large part of the book. The pace of the story did eventually slow down but the excitement never stopped because I couldn't stop trying to figure out how things would work out. This was such a great read.

Peter Ash is veteran dealing with PTSD which causes him to feel claustrophobic anytime he is indoors. He deals with it as best he can which usually means that he tries to stay out of buildings as much as possible. I find Peter to be a very interesting and unique character. He thinks quick and knows his limitations. June is a reporter that finds herself hiding from a group of men that attempted to kidnap her. June meets Peter and they start to work together to figure out why she has been targeted. June's character really complimented Peter's nicely. Their personalities meshed perfectly and they seemed to be able to work smoothly together almost from the moment that they met.

This book has no shortage of action. Peter and June find themselves in the middle of several intense situations and I never know exactly how things would turn around. I was never quite sure exactly who the bad guy was so I didn't really trust any of the characters besides Peter and June and of course, Lewis, who I was very happy to see make an appearance in this book. The story took quite a few twists and turns with many unexpected moments.

I would recommend this book to others. This is the second book in the Peter Ash series and while it could be read as a stand alone, readers will probably appreciated the background knowledge from the first book. I can't wait to get my hands on the next book in this exciting series.

I received an advance reader edition of this book from Penguin Group - Putnam G.P. Putnam's Sons via NetGalley and First to Read.

Burning Bright flickered out. Part One of this novel is well written. I was hooked. At last, I thought, a thriller writer who can write well. The blurbs compared the main character, Peter Ash, to Child's Jack Reacher. Not so, I thought. Peter Ash is a composite of real people who have done real things. Reacher is a composite of Marvel Comic Book characters. BURNING BRIGHT might actually have something to say--in addition to being a fun-to-read thriller.

By Part Two, I was beginning to have my doubts. The author was beginning to stray. Character development was starting to take a back seat to plot development. Worse, the plot was showing every sign of becoming much more intricate and convoluted than character development could withstand. It was showing signs of trying to build action scene on action scene, each scene trying to be more intense than the last, until the book ends in some sort of mythical battle--a final orgy of action. The hero triumphs over not only the bad guys, but also over his inner demons. The female protaganist (essentially the hero's sidekick) sacrifices common sense and good manners in the burning desire to prove that she is as good as any man alive.

Yawnnn. It was obvious that angst was going to fly as thick and fast as were bullets and fists. If not for Part One, I would have stopped reading, and taken the book back to the library.

By Part Three, I was reading just to make sure my worst fears had been realized. They had. Character development had been sacrificed for cliche and for an ever more tangled plot. The female sidekick, June, had become so obnoxious, and so self-involved and so stupidly impetuous that I went from being sympathetic to actively disliking her. Peter Ash had become so angst-ridden, his PTSD so much an on-again, off-again cliche that he was actually starting to dither. All in search of an algorithm.

Say what?

That's right: an algorithm. I found myself laughing out loud . . .

In the end this novel is more in the realm of science fiction than anything else. It is crystal clear to me that, in the space of only two novels, a very talented writer has lost his way. Instead of building his stories around characters, he has gone over to the dark side, and is now trying to build his stories around plot. As inevitably happens, when you do this with a thriller, the plot quickly moves the story from the real world to the fantastical, the characters from real people reacting to unusual circumstances (but very real circumstances none the less) to cartoon characters saving the planet from arch villains. I finished the novel with a profound sense of regret.

Regret that yet another writer with potential is listening to people who have no real writing talent of their own. People who think only in terms of maximizing profits by catering to readers who would rather have cheap, thin beer, and a lot of it, than a great brew that needs to be savored and never imbibed in large quantities.

I've yet to meet an editor who can write worth a damn. And I've yet to meet an agent who cares about literature more than he or she cares about making a buck. And, yes, I've met literally hundreds of both. Nick Petrie needs to listen to himself, and to no one else. Not to editors. Not to agents. Not to loved ones who are fiercely loyal. He needs to write what he has in him to write, and then he needs to give it to readers who not only know about good writing, but who also can tell him where he went wrong. People, in other words, who only care about making what he has written be all that it can be (as opposed to making it sell as many copies as possible). .

In short, he needs to understand that he is a good writer. He doesn't need anyone to pat him on the back. He doesn't need anyone to baby him. He needs to understand that, because of his inate talent, the bar for him is much higher than is the bar for someone who has struggled and worked for years to simply publish a book. He needs to understand that to attain that bar, it's going to take the same amount of stuggle and work that lesser writers have to wrestle with.

Otherwise, his writing is always going to be cheap, thin beer. Lee Child might be rich, and for sure I do not begrudge him the smile on his face when he looks at his bank account. But I wonder what it might be worth to him, when the time comes, to look in the mirror and be able to say that he once wrote a really good book.

NIck Petrie has what it takes to write really good books. Here's hoping that he does.

Peter Ash finds a girlfriend and crosses swords with deep American Covert Black Ops.
While on a month long mental rehab hike in the deep northern California redwoods, Lt Ash runs into a grizzly bear and finds himself trapped high up in juvenile redwood. While there he sees a thick green climbing rope hanging from another redwood next to his. He grabs the rope and starts climbing up the tree into his next great adventure. Burning Bright is a continuation of the Peter Ash saga of a decorated PTD vet who finally came home only to face his own demons. Ash meets a girl 250’ up in the redwood trees who is running from men attempting to kidnap here. She has a secret the deep Covert Intelligence Community wants badly, very badly.
Badly enough to kill anyone who gets in the way: Enter combat vet Peter Ash and the violent tale begins.
Lots of action but not gratuitous “Shoot ‘em bang bang.” Be advised plenty of foul language and some sexual activity but not graphic.
Character development was superb and carries this action packed story. Lt Ash is growing into a formidable protagonist. I like how his friend Lewis made it back into the Ash saga. All in all well done character growth and development.
Author Nick Petrie is onto something special with his protagonist Lt Peter Ash. Like Jack Reacher and other volcanic solitary loners, Lt Ash is a major violent force of one. He fears no man but believes in a strong moral code and is honor bound to protect the innocent. His moral compass his true and when he encounters evil he sees it as his duty to fight it. I see the beginning of a long literary relationship with Lt Ash. Well done Mr. Petrie for introducing a terrific new action character. Looking forward to the next Peter Ash tale.

Petrie’s debut thriller, The Drifter, was a 2016 favorite. In these novels, Petrie’s protagonist, Peter Ash, is a veteran Marine lieutenant who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. His war experience left him with a form of post-traumatic stress disorder that he calls “the static,” and it starts up whenever he’s in a confined space—indoors, for example—threatening to bloom into a full-blown panic.
For that reason, he’s spent a lot of time tromping around the deep forests of the northwest United States, living in a tent, trying to convince himself no one is shooting at him. Unfortunately, in this book, someone is.
When he climbs a young redwood tree to escape a rampaging bear, he discovers he’s not the first or the only one hiding out up there. Following a trail of ropes, he finds a woman with a bow and arrow, the arrow aimed at his heart. (Hits it, too, but not in the literal sense.) The sound of automatic weapons on the ground tells them they need to fly. Their escape through the treetops, thirty stories up and above the forest fog is pure excitement. And that powerful opener is just the beginning of their non-stop adventure.
The woman, June Cassidy, is on the run. Her mother—an artificial intelligence researcher at Stanford University—was killed by a hit-and-run driver, all the contents of her office were carried away in the middle of the night by “government” heavies, who later tried to kidnap Cassidy. Her mother has developed an algorithm to penetrate secure networks called Tyg3r, and quite a few determined folks think now Cassidy has it.
Cassidy wants to know who killed her mother. Ash’s interest is in Cassidy, and he wants to use his considerable tactical and physical skills to protect her. In a recent essay about thriller superheroes, London Review of Books editor John Lanchester described his Superman Test for plausibility: “Is what I’m being asked to believe less likely than the character’s being able to fly?”
Somehow, Petrie’s depiction of Ash and his actions would pass that test. In part that’s because the author is meticulous about explaining how Ash and Cassidy do what they do. Whether you understand all those rope climbing terms or not, the details are utterly convincing.
At the same time, it seems less believable that multiple teams of heavily armed pseudo-governmental agents are driving around in phalanxes of black Ford Explorers. Yet, Ash needs a significant foe, and there’s a high-tech prize of inestimable value here. Perhaps it makes sense that considerable human and firepower resources are focused on acquiring it.
Though heavily overmatched, Ash and Cassidy are not without resources of their own. In addition to their personal skills, Ash calls on some a few pals, including one from The Drifter, Lewis: genius investor, crack shot, awesome sense of humor. Banter between Cassidy and Ash is pretty genuine and entertaining too.
The Northern California and Seattle-area settings are refreshing and full of possibility for the kind of mental isolation that breeds paranoia. And there’s plenty of it in this novel, given the game-changing significance of the technologies it explores. As Petrie says in an author’s note, “large institutions, both public and private, operate with few controls in a fast-changing environment. For some reason, I don’t find this entirely comforting.” Nor will you.

"Burning Bright" has lots of good writing, some suspenseful parts, several interesting characters, and an attempt at building an unusual story-line and memorable characters.

For example, the hot babe is more than just a pretty face. She's a helluva climber with great outdoor skills. I don't recall much else about her. She and our hero start doing the boom-boom, and he falls in love with her, but not she with him.

This all feels like an attempt to avoid clichés, rather than an attempt at finding some kind of truth about human nature. Or even truth about adventure.

It is escapist fiction, after all, and it works fairly well for that.

About 40% of it is really good, but it's just way too much for me to swallow. It's like looking at a huge platter of spaghetti and meatballs and feeling too full to continue.

It fits the genre of beach reads or airplane reads. The whole bestseller industry is based around escaping the boredom of a vacation at the beach or a long airline flight, I think.

Not sure I want to do that, as a writer or reader, even if I had the stamina. I seem to reach a satiation point earlier than most bestseller readers. There is only so much spaghetti that I can eat. Or cook.

I was very pleasantly surprised when I read Burning Bright. I wasn't sure what to expect as I had not read the lst book of the series. The begining of the book hooked me from the start. The protangonist, Peter Ash, is a Marine (once a Marine, always a Marine) who served several tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and came home with a serious case of PTSD. Among his diifficulties is he can't sleep under a roof.

Ash decides to visit the redwood groves in Northern California for some peace and quiet. It turns out the dense groves trigger his condition and to top it off, a large bear decides to make an apperance. Ash makes a timely retreat up a tree where he notices a rope hanging down from some upper branches. He follows the rope, finds several other ropes connected and finally sees the last one connected to a platform hanging in the tree tops. He hoists himself onto the platform and finds a woman huddled there. So begins the adventure.

June Cassidy is hiding from some very nasty men who had tried to kidnap her. She became enmeshed in the situation when she went to pick up her recently deceased mother's effects. Her mother was a brillant researcher who had been working on a goverment classified project before her death. The men were in her lab to steal the the whole project when June appeared. So the chase was on.

Ash got involved when he arrived on the platform to which June had fled. They were wary of one another at first but decide they needed to get along. The story follows their efforts to escape the kidnappers and prevent the theft of the project. There is an abundance of action and it is quite exciting. I do recommend this book. It's a good escape for a couple of days.

Burning Bright is the second Nick Petrie novel I’ve read with his PTSD hero Peter Ash and it was another good one. While Peter gets a lot of comparison to Jack Reacher, I find him quite different. He’s got some similarities but a lot more differences.

I like that the author, with no personal background whatsoever, tackles such a subject as PTSD, something not many authors touch on or in such a profound way. It makes for a great character quirk as well as addressing something that needs to be addressed. However, what this review is really about is whether I liked the story and the writing, which I did.

The story was once again, top notch, with plenty of twists and turns and the return of at least one character from The Drifter. The writing was also solid third-person, past-tense with no head-hopping which was outstanding, especially in the way the author handled each major character with their own chapters. That kept things solid and separate and I always knew which head the author was in from chapter to chapter and scene to scene.

The story and pacing were brisk and the narrative never bogged down with literary description or unnecessary character ruminations. There was just enough to keep it interested without slowing down the action. It was very well done.

This was a solid thriller that had a decent and satisfying ending. I was able to close the book with a smile on my face. Can’t ask for better than that! Highly recommended.

June Cassidy is pushing 30 working as a freelancer writing mostly on issues of privacy in the electronic age for Public Investigations. Having recently lost her mother who had been a brilliant scientist working on classified software for the Department of Defense, June was heart broken that she died from injuries sustained by a hit and run driver. Still in a daze from the shock of losing her mother, she rode her single-speed Schwinn at a slow pace to pick up a jolt of coffee to start her day. Suddenly June became alert and highly suspicious when a large black SUV pulled up beside her with some menacing looking men inside. Claiming to be the feds, they demanded she stop and get in their vehicle for questioning. For many years June was constantly told by her mom, by her selfdefense instructor, don’t ever get in the car; so that wasn’t going to happen, not today, until they zapped her with an electric stun gun. Action-packed, a gripping engrossing story with menacing aggressive characters on the hunt, Burning Bright is unputdownable never letting up for one nanosecond.

I finally finished this long but great story! The story isn't what I had initially thought it was about, but I was pleasantly surprised. But it's a great mystery story with some wonderful characters. And one of the main characters, Peter Ash, is post-military with post-traumatic stress syndrome whereby he isn't able to sleep indoors. Peter meets the other main character, June Cassiday, in a large redwood tree along the northern coast of California.
June's mother, Hazel is a Stanford professor (highly intelligent), and is working on a "top-secret" classified software project for the Department of Defense. Her mother hasn't shared anything with June in regards to this new software. Reasonable...it's classified. The opening of the book is where June's mother was accidently killed by a plumber's truck. Or so it seems. After the funeral, June makes a trip to her mother's lab to pick up her mother's personal belongings only to find a couple of men in suits with Dept. of Defense ID's packing up Tyg3r, her mother's experimental bench-made mini-supercomputer with all the spare drives. Shortly thereafter June leaves home to get coffee and is kidnapped by these guys but somehow she gets away and hides in the redwood tree's. Initially June and Peter don't trust each other as they both are hiding from something or someone. Quickly they become fast friends, and Peter tries to protect June from these bad guys that come looking for her in the redwoods. One did spot Peter hanging from a redwood tree, and the race was on. June and Peter escape though through a high-upper rope trail in the tree tops. They escape to a nearby town where Peter purchases a car. All the while the bad guys are on their trail because they have tapped into June's cell phone and her laptop. June has seen these four men in suits a few times, but she doesn't have a clue who they are. These men were in two black Chevy SUV's, eventually catch up with June and Peter, and start shooting at them. Both racing cars lose control, turn over, and wreck down the side of a hill. If they wreck didn't kill the bad guys, Peter finishes them off. Which is of great concern to June because she really doesn't know who Peter is...just yet. But he's protecting June, and she really needs the help because these guys are trying to kill her. And why, she doesn't know. They have to get a second car which Peter pays cash for (a man named Lewis sends him money) and now they are heading north to June's place in Washington state. However, Peter has noticed there's a black Explorer following them. June has an apartment home on the upper level of the house and a young, computer wiz landlord; Leo Boyle, lives in the lower level. Boyle is sweet on June and Peter see's how he looks at June. Peter is protective of June and is suspicious of Boyle. But invites him to have dinner with them just the same. Peter has to sleep outdoors because of his PT and puts up a tent by the neighbors fence. He even has these attacks when indoors very long. Peter is settling in for the night, and he receives a surprise visit from June and an evening of intimate romance. (Whoo Hoo, good for him. Ha!) It isn't until June had returned home that Peter realized that June's cell and laptop were being hacked. So Peter calls an old military buddy, Manny, and his good money buddy, Lewis for help. Peter drives with the laptop to different paths in different parts of the city to confuse their followers of June's apartment location. He ditches the laptop and cell phone. But Beth wants (but says she needs) a new computer since she's a journalist and needs to stay in touch with her work. When Leo Boyle finds out June was having trouble with her laptop, he volunteers to help June.
Listen, I'm stopping here. There's many good and bad characters in this book. It's so long and the review is too. It's a great book by a fairly new author, Nicholas Petrie. He has a previous book called "The Drifter" which I'd like to read too. So read this book and if you're like me, you'll want to read the Drifter too.

This is the second novel in the Pater Ash series. The author did a pretty good job of introducing the main character so it is not crucial to have read The Drifter (A Peter Ash Novel) in order to follow along and enjoy this book. However, much of the action in this book takes place outdoors so the severity of Ash's PTSD symptoms is reduced significantly. For that reason, plus getting the background on Lewis and how he relates to Ash, I strongly recommend that you read The Drifter before reading this book.

Peter Ash is an unusual main character for a thriller. He isn't the do-it-all Superman type. He has a specific type of PTSD that results in an extreme claustrophobia -- being indoors for any amount of time brings on the "white static" the plagues him. As a result he spends nearly all his time outdoors, often camping in wilderness areas. This book opens with Ash climbing a tree to escape a bear and encountering June Cassidy at the top of the tree, hiding from men who want to kidnap or kill her to see what she knows about something her mother had been working on before her death.

The book continues with Peter and June traveling through California, Oregon and Washington trying to keep one step ahead of the bad guys and also learn who is after the project June's late mother was working on. Peter calls on help from Lewis, who will be familiar to readers of the first book. I particularly liked the addition of Lewis to the mix because his personality is so different from Ash.

One thing I especially appreciate about these books is that the female characters the author writes are not shrinking violets in need of rescuing by the men. June is not as savvy as Peter on the ways she could be tracked but she holds her own when it comes to the physical action and figuring out what is happening.

This book kept my interest the whole way through. I highly recommend this book and this series.

BURNING BRIGHT (A PETER ASH NOVEL) is basically a "good guys on the run" thriller, but the exciting plot and the intriguing characters (Peter Ash, June Cassidy, and Shepard, the stone killer who's after them) really grab you. This novel is a page-turner of the best kind--you won't want to put it down.

In the novel, June is inexplicably kidnapped by men carrying fake Department of Defense IDs; but she escapes from their SUV, and flees to a treetop research facility in a Redwood forest. She has no idea what the men want with her, but suspects it may be connected with her recently deceased mother's secret, cutting-edge research into artificial intelligence that probes the Internet and gathers ultra-sensitive information (Tyg3r).

Ex-marine Peter, who is living outdoors because of his acute claustrophobia (PTSD), is hiking through the Redwood forest when he's treed by a full-grown male grizzly bear. With nowhere to go but up, Peter spots one of the research facility's access ropes, and follows it until he meets June--who is armed with a compound bow, and an arrow pointed straight at Peter's chest.

When the fake government men locate June's sanctuary, Peter and June are forced to "team up". Theirs is an arms-length relationship, born of necessity. June is highly suspicious of Peter, and ready to shoot him at the slightest provocation. They escape through the treetops to June's ancient Subaru, and soon are careening along a narrow logging road, with a black SUV carrying a rifleman on their tail and rapidly closing the gap. But the pursuit has only just begun ....

Both Peter and June are damaged goods, but they are fit, intelligent, almost fearless, and resourceful--and they complement each other. An extremely well-written thriller, BURNING BRIGHT is the second "Peter Ash" novel, but it works fine as a standalone. (The series starts with THE DRIFTER.)

Peter Ash is an ex-marine, deployed for eight years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now he's unemployed (though not without financial resources) and so wracked by post-traumatic stress that he can't live or sleep indoors. Compulsive hiking brings him into contact with June Cassidy. She, too, is on the run, not from memories but from real men with guns, men who are hunting for her in the forest.

I particularly liked the scenes with Peter and June among the California redwoods. Both of them are seasoned climbers, and the treetops are their refuge. Peter is the quintessential action hero, a boy scout with muscles, a warrior at home with every known weapon. June's life is under threat, and that's all it takes to activate Peter's protective impulse. As it turns out, June is a fighter and can mostly take care of herself, but two warriors are better than one. Later Peter's combat pals will also turn up to help too. They are a fun bunch.

The enemy is unclear, but they have trained killers at their bidding and lots of firepower. They want to get hold of an advanced algorithm that June's mother developed (and got murdered for). They assume June has this advanced artificial intelligence program. Technology drives the plot. June is never separated from her laptop.

There are some terrific villains, but the bad guys are not always easy to tell from the good guys. The action is almost non-stop. The reader can look forward to lots of gunfire, burning cars, stealthy stalking, and a high body count among the bad guys.

Burning Bright is a clever, well-written thriller with shocks and surprises at every turn. I burned through it quickly, and can recommend it to fans of the thriller genre.

Peter Ash is damaged by post traumatic stress syndrome. It disturbs his routine, costs relationships, and exiles him away from humanity. Then he meets June. June is the foul-mouthed daughter of the "mad-billionaire" and Stanford computer researcher.

The story begins with June's quest to stay alive, morphs into her desperate desire to find her mother's killers, and then to reconnect with her hated dad.

Enter Peter Ash who meets her on one of his multi-month outdoor treks to avoid the static caused by PTSS. He becomes her protector out of a sense of duty and desire to do something good, possibly right for a change. He's highly trained and extremely dangerous as many of June's pursuers find out.

This story twist through the dark underworld of extra-government agencies, computer geeks, and retired vets who are deeply bored with civilian life.

I would have given it 5-stars but there was a point where I thought it stalled and dragged itself forward.... In other words there was not enough pressure on Peter and June to survive, there were no new tricks to pull or learn, nothing beyond straight forward murder and mayhem. Mainly this point was basically were they started having sex. From there on out, the story slows almost to a crawl before they are kicked back into survival mode. But it never reaches the high gear it was in after the tent...

Mr. Petrie, in case you visit this section and read the comments periodically, first let me say, kudos and congratulations on another fine, compelling book. I really like Peter Ash and you did a wonderful job making June so very different from Dinah. I have to be honest, though, you're scaring me a little bit. I had to stop reading Ben Coes after the fourth or fifth book because either the writing or the editing got sloppy, I'm not sure which. In his books, it got to where on almost every page, something or other (a bullet, a plane, a motorcycle) "ripped across the (sky, street, air)" along with other phrases repeated so often it yanked me out of the story like his "unmuted gunfire." The only reason I mention this is because I noticed that in practically every conversation Peter had with Lewis, he could "hear his tilted grin." I'm not kidding. If I had it on Kindle I would look up how many times that is said. Then, later, in person, Lewis smiled his "tilted grin."

So here's my plea to you and your editor. Please don't get lazy. I would like to continue to read this series. Thank you.

Conspiracy-theory, fugitive from the law, car chase books aren't my usual choice of reading material but I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The plot pulls you in immediately with June getting kidnapped and then escaping shortly after her mother, government contractor working on a top secret tech project, get killed in a hit and run "accident." June hides in an old research facility in some redwoods in the middle of nowhere when a "shell-shocked" war veteran named Peter stumbles across her while trying to escape from a bear. It was love at first sight for Peter and he offers June his protection. Together they go on the run, trying to figure out who is after June and why. Their quick wit and banter make them entertaining and enduring. I would definitely recommend. This is the second book in the series but I did not read the first and I do not feel like I missed anything.

I gave this 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Penguin's First to Read Program with no requirement to review book.

While fleeing a bear, war weary veteran Peter Ash encounters young woman, June Cassidy, in a forest. June is being pursued by beasts of the human kind who are equally lethal although their motivation is unclear. Although suffering from PTSD, Ash possess the skills necessary for survival. June is not the typical damsel in distress. An investigative journalist, she has formidable talents herself. She suspects her pursuers are after a computer program her late mother developed and it seems that what she doesn't know might kill her. She and Ash fight for the truth and their lives.

This novel is fast paced fun. Ash is a likable hero. He is like a military McGyver, skilled but still very human. The human hits all the hot button topics,including how technology provides unprecedented access and control and the murky and amoral relationships between government and corporate interests. The writing is crisp, the pacing great and the main characters relatable. Although the plot is predictable the story is so engaging it does not diminish the fun. Great Read.

This story didn't seem as organized as the drifter, but maybe it was because there seemed to be a lot more boring descriptive words about the location: trees, valleys, rivers, streets, etc. All kinds of things that distracted from the plot. And the ending was a little hard to accept; good guys mixed up with the bad buys. But it ended well and left the possibility for Peter to see June again, just not in a tent! Overall, an enjoyable read and consistent characters, and I started Light It Up! Norm

This book seems light years away from the previous book in this series (The Drifter) in geography and in sentiment. First of all, this book has much more violence than the previous book. Why does it seem like all authors are ramping up the gun violence? Peter mows down an impressive number of people in this, which wouldn't have happened in the prior book. What this does is make the character much less likeable and the story much less believable. There is a very large sexual component to the story which also didn't appear before. I can't say that I agree with the directions this new book has gone. If I had started with this one first I may have enjoyed it more. Overall, this is a step back from the previous book.

An obvious homage to the Reacher series, the Peter Ash character is more complex, his rationale more understandable Ash is a veteran suffering PTSD. In this second novel, he stumbles across a young woman on the run from persons who might have killed her mother. He is the sort to involve himself. From there, the story unfolds, with fights and guns and drama and all that, but in a fun way. By this I mean that he fights like a pro, but not a God, and there is something of Jim Rockford in his nature -- he takes a few punches.

Very fun, good read.

Really enjoyed my first novel with this author,second book in the Peter Ash series. As a female book had the appropriate level of cation, gore, and it also goes into Peter's struggles with post war psychological issues that pagued him through out this novel. It made him real in a two dimensional novel! There were some real raw emotional moments with many of the characters in the book. It kept you guessing to the end, but the ending was rather unusual twist to close the story. Great pace, took me less than 2 days to read it, as it was hard to put down, depth of story not a good as others I have red, but enough to keep you hooked. Sure, look forward to reading the next one, nd to cut u- with the first book!

I missed Nicholas Petrie's first novel "The Drifter" in which he introduced us to his new character, an ex-soldier suffering from PTSD named Peter Ash. Debut novels don't generally attract a lot of notice or much fanfare, but Mr. Petrie's initial effort generated 150 the store reviews with an average rating of 4.5 stars. Not bad for a first novel and enough incentive for me to order his second book.

Even though "The Drifter" must have provided considerable insight into this complicated and battle-scarred veteran, "Burning Bright" made it easy for new readers to quickly understand and identify with him. Think of Lee Child's character Jack Reacher (the one in the book -- not the one in the movie) and add PTSD to Jack's complex set of skills. Peter Ash is younger than Jack, not as imposing in appearance, but in general appears to be as intelligent, intuitive and capable as Mr. Child's famous restless warrior.

Nicholas Petrie has crafted a very intriguing story which addresses several current subjects including preservation of natural resources, cyber security, machines that learn while they perform tasks, self-sustaining communities, energy efficient drones, mental illness, and the complicated interface that big government has with shadow companies in the private sector. These shadow companies allow the government to address particular needs without public exposure and accomplish complicated objectives while retaining "plausible deniability".

You as a potential reader don't need me to recap the story line for you. It would be a shame to set the stage from my point of view when your own perspective is what is valuable here. The ethical struggles and sometimes violent results may be justifiable in your eyes -- and then again they may not be. Suffice it to say that Nicholas Petrie has written an entertaining and compelling story that has enough twists and turns to keep you captivated.

He describes his scenes and characters with just enough detail to give you appropriate images but doesn't over-write with flowery prose like Cormac McCarthy. ( My apologies to Cormac McCarthy fans. I just don't take pleasure in having a scene described down to the smallest atomic element.) The action is fast-paced and consistent with the objectives being accomplished. Yes there is some violence and sexual references, but they are not offensive (at least to me) and the reader is often deftly turned back to the main story with interjections of subtle humor. After all, these are regular people trapped in a difficult situation.

I initially struggled a bit with the ending. However after reflecting on the personalities and motivations of the main characters it all made perfect sense. It will no doubt surprise you after considering what it took to get to that point, but in the end it is logical and understandable.

The second book in the series, after The Drifter. You don't have to have read The Drifter to read this, but you definitely will at some point want to read it.
This time out Peter Ash, former Marine first runs foul of a California bear out in the wilderness, and then run into June, an investigative journalist being chased by a shadowy possibly government organization who wants the code her mother was working on, which will have a huge impact on how computer perform in the future.
I literally could not put this book down and finished it in a day.
A great book for summer.

The story line is very entertaining and I enjoy most of it but I am turned off by the constant use of the F word. It appears on nearly every page in the beginning and many more pages as the story narrates. It is unnecessary. I am one of those who does not care for vulgarity in literature. I understand he wants to show the stress of persons in bad situations, but for decades, authors were able to show that stress without resorting to vulgarity, and we all understood that characters stress. I am not sure that I will bother to read his next novel and I feel no need to expose myself to that kind of language.

This is heart stopping. The races in the forest. The black SUVs. The sinister characters. Who DO you trust? Nick Petrie gives a page turner to be sure. I couldn't put it down as every chapter ends with a cliff hanger of sorts and then wondering which character is trust worthy, who is going to blow the whistle, a sinister character appearing to show up on each page. Juniebug is ably assisted by Peter Ash in this novel which finds June's mother murdered, her eccentric father a recluse and government officials run amuck. Thrilling scenes coupled with poignant scenes will have you reading up to the very end then breathe deeply!

I won this uncorrected proof from Goodreads giveaway.

Peter Ash, a veteran of both Iraq & Afghanistan, suffers from PTSD. He finds it necessary to live and sleep in the open to prevent panic attacks. His hike in the Northern Californis Redwoods is the start of an exciting and dangerous adventure which includes a woman, hi tech, and a bevy of assassins. This is great writing and a real page turner.

The second in anew series in the war veteran/drifter thriller genre. Could be read as a stand-alone, but it would probably be better to read The Drifter first so the character development makes a bit more sense. As good as the Reacher series so far. A flawed hero that shows disinterested morality at times, and at other times a strong, but very personal moral compass. Plenty of action sequences that do not stretch the bounds of credibility too far.

Petrie’s Burning Bright is the second novel featuring Peter Ash, an ex-soldier who –this is the twist to his character-- suffers from PTSD, in the form of aggravated claustrophobia. (The first was 2015’s The Drifter.) If he has to stay inside for long, he breaks out in a sweat and he hears –senses through all his nerves-- a White Noise that rapidly makes it hard to concentrate or stay calm. In this second novel, Ash seems finally to be gaining control over his affliction, but it’s still sets him apart: he avoids crowds and prefers to sleep and live outside, not inside, houses, because in his deep memory they tend to harbor dangerous and unexpected things, IEDs, or hostiles in ambush and little boys with bombs hidden beneath their jackets.
In this installment, Ash climbs a tree and meets up with a damsel in distress, a high-powered freelance reporter. He’s up there because he was treed by a bear. She’s in hiding. She suspects someone has killed her scientist Mom and she knows they’ve tried to kidnap her. She explains her situation to him. They wait, very quiet, and hear men and gunshots below them. From then on, this is a classic novel of pursuit, a group of very competent Bad Guys in aggressive and persistent pursuit and Ash and the woman fighting in a desperate effort first to save their own lives and second to find out why she is being pursued and who’s behind the search. The action is plentiful and well described, Ash is a resourceful hero (he even has a sense of humor) and the young reporter an appealing heroine, and the bad guys are satisfyingly bad, which means they’re competent –sometimes almost super competent—and utterly devoid of any moral compass. There’s a good love story embedded in the midst of all the action and even the scenery–northern California-- is appealing. Another plus is that this installment is a stand-alone: you can read it without having to retrace the installment before it.

After the first novel appeared, one newspaper reviewer wrote that Ash was “an action hero of the likes of Jack Reacher or Jason Bourne.” That doesn’t say much, either about the character or about the author’s talent in writing about him. Ash is fit, observant and trained in all the arts of hiding and combat but he can’t do what Reacher does because he’s nowhere as big as he is and he’s much less troubled than Bourne. But more than that, there’s the writing of this series to date. Petrie tells a better story than Ludlum (less clichéd and nut clogged up with digressions) and as good a story as Child does in the best of Reacher series. Burning Bright is a very good action thriller.

Nicolas Petrie's Peter Ash took on a few banksters in his debut, The Drifter. Unlike the Federal government, he came away with more money than was stolen. In his new novel, Peter Ash runs into the fringes of the Deep State[Peter Dale Scott], that is funded in the trillions by a secret system of finance[The Breakaway Civilization Series by Joseph P Farrell]; wherein corporate and government interests both essentially form one gigantic amalgamated, inseparable entity-with a public division and a private one. When someone goes to the top from a private sector job to a top government job, it's simply an intracorporate transfer. This facilitates the easy transfer of funds.
Some refer to this system as corporate fascism. And a corporate press certainly isn't going to investigate anything effecting its bottom line: profit/power. Thus, we meet the heroine of Burning Bright, June an investigative journalist; who, like others in her profession find themselves going extinct in this corporate fascist new world order/the paper began to lay off reporters, especially investigative reporter, who might take weeks or months to research a story for publication. She was making real progress, splitting time between her garage apartment in Seattle and her mom's little house in Palo Alto, which gave her an inexpensive platform to cover the West Coast. Her specialty was issues of privacy in the electronic age. Then her mom her was killed.
Meanwhile Peter Ash is still having white-noise issues and ends up in the deep redwoods of Northern California. Soon fate will intervene and bring these two together in a fight against the fringes of the deep state apparatus.
I especially liked the beginning of this novel as both Peter and June are tracked by PMCs[private military contractors] into the wilds of the forests with a grisly confrontations, coming one after another.
There is a high-tech aspect of this novel that is quite prescient in today's society/Artificial Intelligence. Also getting top billing are: Privacy, Social Media, and how private power is eating away what's left of public power's lunch.
Join Peter and June as they run across those deadly-trip-wires of the Deep State.

There he was, out in the California redwoods, communing with nature, but most importantly, not being inside. Because Peter Ash came back from the warzone with a type of post-traumatic stress that left him severely claustrophobic. His day took a fast turn for the worse when he stumbled across a grizzly bear that was looking for some pre-hibernation protein. Peter barely escaped up a tree, and then found a rope dangling from an adjacent redwood, climbed it, and met June Cassidy at the top, who was having an even worse day.

You need a pretty big “suspension of disbelief” pill to get through that much, but it’s worth it. Peter is sort of a Jack Reacher Lite, much more human and vulnerable, and with a lot less testosterone. He prefers thinking to fisticuffs, but isn’t above killing bad guys if that’s the only way out. He’s got unlimited funds from something that happened in the first book, and loyal friends who will drop everything at a moment’s notice to help him stage a major firefight. Well, you may need another of those “s-o-d” pills. He’s helping June, who was kidnapped shortly after her mother died in a hit-and-run accident. Her mother developed a computer super-intelligence, which is capable of getting through any firewall and into any computer system, to retrieve any information conceivable. Somebody – or possibly multiple somebodys – wants that software, and they think she has it, and will stop at nothing to get it. OK, just take another pill if you need to, but you probably won’t want to waste the time to put the book down. This story starts off fast and accelerates from there on a strange but utterly compelling ride. It’s not just hoary action, it’s a lot of fun, with a hero who recognizes his weaknesses and cleverly works around them. The scenery isn’t all that detailed but the main characters are, and the bad guys are as believable as it gets for this genre.

If you like the Reacher series, you’ll probably like this one, and I suspect a lot more women will like this too. I enjoyed it enough that I’ve ordered the first book, and will grab the next one when it comes out. And that’s the best recommendation I can give for any new author.

A psychological suspense thriller, something that was right up my alley it seemed. Here we follow an investigative journalist, June whose mother got killed in a supposed hit and run accident. During the duration of the book, she finds mysterious agencies pursuing her for their own agenda. Her life's in the hands of Peter, who is a veteran from Iraq with PTSD.

This book is very tangly in the sense of political intrigue and government conspiracies, but something was missing. Sure there was something that I would consider as “thrill of the chase”, but that’s not my favorite part of the book. My favorite part was definitively when June repeatedly outsmarted the “bad guys” and was one step ahead of the game in some sense, in others; not.

The worst part in my opinion was the romance, because I just didn’t feel the chemistry. And honestly, I thought that detracted from the main plotline. So many times throughout their sex scenes, I was thinking that this is not the time for this, you are running for your life and might get killed. Like romance is unnecessary as a subplot in this book so I don’t know why it’s even in there.

Coming into this series, I actually wasn’t aware that this was a second book. But let me say that I think that Peter is a pretty messed up character, despite his protective intention. I really do hope that he goes and fixes himself up before he is ready to face “domestic civilization”. That’s why I thought that the ending was thoughtfully done, in a way that opened the door into the next continuation. Let’s just say that I’m not interested in going to read the first book or the next book in the future; I feel indifferent about what will happen in this series.

Honestly, this book felt like an action movie. It only slowed down for the last 100 pages at the end there, where there was a lot of sitting around and waiting. But still, I wouldn’t be surprised if readers alike imagine this as one of those high-dramatic plot-filled action sagas.

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy in exchange for my honest review.**

Mr. Petrie writes with such style that he paints the landscape, surroundings and emotions of his characters in fascinating detail. His characters are observant and his connections in the story are not so far fetched that they aren't believable, yet enough of a break from the day to day reality for most of us that they are riveting.

love this writer,he is just an incredible story teller i read burning bright in one day could not put it down,i am 71 years old and finding real true writers is getting harder ever day,he is most certainly a keeper.

Better than book # 1. Hope this series continues. Great characters and left guessing as to who are the real heroes.. and the villains. Many twists and turns right to the last page. A must read for any fan of this genre.