Big Thrill Recommends The Big Thrill Recommends: RUN by Matthew Becker

The Big Thrill Recommends: RUN by Matthew Becker

Recommended by Jody Gerbig

In his debut RUN, mathematician Matthew Becker uses his math and political background to render a unique and layered Washington, D.C.-based thriller, focusing more on relationships and truth than the political conspiracies that make us question them.

Ben Walsh has the perfect life: his brilliant, albeit rather secretive, wife Veronica who looks stunning in a cocktail dress, adorable twins who love their babysitter, an exciting career as a Congressional chief of staff, and a best friend running for President.

Until his wife goes missing while jogging—in the same park on the same morning as a mass shooting, moments after sending Ben a cryptic text that sounds to him like goodbye.

Not convinced his wife is dead, Ben investigates, learning not only that Veronica is a prime suspect in the shooting, but that she has ties to a known murderer also looking for her. Turns out, his wife might not be the stable math professor he always thought she was, and his perfect life might be a colossal lie.

Questioning whether he should continue looking for her—knowing she might have brutally killed people moments after kissing her children on their foreheads—or let her past hunt her down, he finds his answer in an esoteric clue Veronica left for him. Now, he is on a mission more dangerous than his policy career ever prepared him for.

For fans of Harlan Coben or Alex Finlay, RUN blurs the lines between villain and hero, guilty and innocent, past and present, leaving readers wondering whom they should root for and why.