Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd

Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd

William Boyd is a literary craftsman whose skills keep the reader enthralled and informed from the first page to the last. In his surprising new novel, William Boyd explores how one chance occurrence can evolve rapidly into a life-leveling storm. Climatologist Adam Kindred is trying to establish a new life in London (far from his failed marriage and ruined career in the US) when he inadvertently stumbles upon a botched murder and becomes the chief suspect. Boyd manages to breathe new life into the wrong-man tale, weaving together vivid back-stories of intriguing characters, from the hired killer desperate to clean up his mess, to the ruthless executives out for profit, to the hardscrabble individuals Kindred meets while on the run. Ordinary Thunderstorms is anything but ordinary: an ambitious, engaging thriller that also raises questions about identity, religion, and social responsibility.

Boyd takes the readers into the times, places and events with unerring skill, drawing out the characters with exquisite detail of appearance, speech, environment, motivation and behavior. This is a thriller of extraordinary dimensions, and one can only hope it will be filmed, to provide again counterpoint to the mindless drivel that passes increasingly for movie entertainment these days.