‘Riptide’ Coulter’s latest success > Writer’s fifth thriller ranks among the best

RIPTIDE, by Catherine Coulter, Putnam, 2000, 400 pages, hardcover, $23.95.

If there were an award for thriller of the year, then “Riptide” by Catherine Coulter would win it, hands down.

Where Robert Ludlum used Nazis and worldwide conspiracies to build his reputation as king of the suspense novel, Coulter uses ordinary people in familiar locations. And she gets as many twists and turns in her plots as Ludlum does.

“Riptide” is her fifth suspense novel after achieving early success as a writer of historical romances. Now she has achieved success in both genres.

This one takes place in a picturesque Maine coastal village called Riptide. It becomes a haven for Rebecca Matlock, a young woman working as a speechwriter for the governor of New York.

At the outset, Becca has left Albany to see to her dying mother in New York City. In Albany and Gotham, she gets disturbing phone calls from a stalker. After her mother passes away, the stalker escalates his threats by blowing up a homeless woman right under her apartment window while he talks to Becca on the phone.

She goes to the police, but they think she’s a nut case. So, Becca flees to Riptide, where she meets an intense young man named Tyler McBride with whom she went to college. Tyler has a preschool son named Sam.

Meanwhile, someone takes a shot at the governor and the police tie it to Becca and she finds her name and picture all over the TV.

So Becca – using the name Powell – rents an old eight-bedroom Victorian house in Riptide that used to belong to an old man named Jacob Marley (right out of Dickens). Shortly after she moves in, a thunder-and-lightning storm causes a cement-block wall in the cellar to cave in and out pops a skeleton.

Who is it? Is it the long-missing wife of Tyler? Or some other girl? Now we have an added mystery in the mix.

There’s another twist to the plot as a mysterious, handsome man shows up, named Adam Carruthers. He quickly becomes her guardian angel and we learn, further on, that he is working for an equally mysterious Thomas Matlock, Becca’s father. Becca’s father is a former CIA agent who inadvertently killed a KGB spy’s wife and, in order to protect his wife and child (Becca), severed his connection with them and went underground to protect them while he continued working for the government at a high level. He’s a “very well-protected high-ranking member of the intelligence community.” Becca thought he was dead.

So, toss an avenging KGB superspy into the plot. Mix in two guys lusting for her – Adam and Tyler – and the odd behavior of a little boy. Then add the New York police who want Becca for questioning, at least. And there’s still the question of the skeleton in the basement.

While the plot, with all the elements, holds the suspense, and there is plenty of action, there are added touches – soupcons in the recipe, if you will – that gives this a special flavor. One is the vivid description, another the fast pace. The narration and scene-building are blended perfectly with the plot.

The key characters are developed carefully as we go along – the determined, vibrant Becca; the moody, intense Tyler; poised, virile Adam. Several of the minor characters are standouts, including a husband-and-wife FBI team who aid in protecting Becca.

Murder, a child abduction, assaults on her house, attempted assassination, all follow in quick-time. And through it all we have the looming figure of her father desperately trying to protect her as the stalker continues to play cat and mouse.

Coulter has a hidden sense of humor, too, and a good sense of irony. This passage shows some of that:

“Riptide, she thought as she got into the Toyota, her haven once upon a time, with its Food Fort on Poison Oak Circle and Goose’s Hardware on West Hemlock. She drove slowly along Poison Ivy Lane, then turned onto Foxglove Avenue, down two blocks to her street, Belladonna Way. She turned yet again on Gum Shoe Lane, drove past Tyler’s house, then turned back onto Belladonna Way to Jacob Marley’s house. It was getting a bit cooler, thank God, even though the sun was still high in the summer. Maine gave you the earliest sunrise and the latest sunset.”

Poison oak, poison ivy, foxglove, belladonna – poisons all – and how about Gum Shoe Lane? How about an FBI agent named Sherlock – a beautiful red-haired woman?

While this is a marvelous thriller, it’s also a romance – not to mention the mystery of the skeleton in the old house. When the stalker segment of the plot comes to a climax, you wonder how all the pieces will be tied together. They are – in a second hair-raising climax. This is a sure best seller.