The Execution

May 12, 2014
Wolf's tension-filled follow-up to The Intercept sends NYPD Intelligence Division detective Jeremy Fisk on yet another mission to keep New York City (and perhaps the world) safe from terror. The setting is the controlled chaos of United Nations Week and a highlight meeting between President Obama and the new Mexican president, Umberto Vargas, to sign a treaty. The discovery of 13 decapitated bodies in Rockaway alarms Cecilia Garza of the Policía Federal assigned to Vargas's security detail, because the killings bear the hallmark of the assassin called Chuparosa, who she believes intends to kill Vargas. Fisk, an entertaining lone wolf, and Garza clash frequently as each pursues the best way to protect their respective presidents and thwart the wily Chuparosa, who leaves a growing number of corpses in his wake. Garza and Wolf each have personal agendas that evolve in surprising ways. Wolf delivers a number of interesting twists that keep the action fresh.

Starred review from December 10, 2001
A self-absorbed British PR rep for a human rights activist group slowly begins falling apart in Wilcken's taut debut, a diabolical thriller that echoes the best suspense of Patricia Highsmith with a cheeky nod to Dostoyevski. Matthew Bourne is the first-person narrator who temporarily ditches his campaign to keep a controversial African poet from being executed after an older colleague named Christian collapses upon learning that his attractive wife has died in a car accident. Bourne takes him to the hospital and identifies her body for the police, but he becomes so disturbed by the incident that he inexplicably picks up an attractive PR colleague at a party, even though his girlfriend Marianne has just become pregnant with the couple's second child. Bourne's behavior gets even stranger when he impulsively trails Marianne to a midafternoon appointment and learns that she is having an affair. After tracking the couple for several weeks, Bourne confronts Marianne's lover and accidentally kills him. He then calls Christian to the crime scene, and the two men take the victim to a remote location outside of London to dispose of the body. The excellent character writing carries the day here, but Wilcken is also a masterful storyteller who uses a combination of plot twists, Bourne's growing guilt and his deteriorating relationship with Marianne to notch up the tension and transform an unlikable protagonist into a fascinating antihero. This is a remarkably accomplished debut heralding the arrival of a noteworthy talent. Wilcken's literary career may take as many fascinating twists as this brilliant book.