The Identity Man

The Identity Man (2010) by Andrew Klavan. John Shannon is a petty crook, framed for a murder he didn't commit. After he goes on the run, he has a stroke of luck which is scarcely to be believed. Told by a mysterious, foreign stranger that he has "made a friend," Shannon is drugged and whisked away to a safe-house, where he undergoes plastic surgery to change his appearance and is given a whole new identity. Our sympathies are with Shannon, because he saved a woman from being brutalized during a robbery-gone-bad that he was involved in. Like him, we want it to be true -- the new identity, the opportunity to work and make an honest life, the woman he meets and falls in love with. But of course, nothing in life or in books is that simple. The complications that follow are at times a little hard to understand, but it all comes down to a slam-bang action finish and a satisfying epilogue. Grade: B+