With each new effort, Pavone’s novelty value has diminished ... Pavone’s latest protagonist, Ariel Pryce, is so fretful and talky ... Pavone still has game. He’ll dupe any reader who takes the plot of Two Nights in Lisbon at face value ... In a maneuver that tangles his book significantly, Pavone gives it a time span much longer than the 'two nights' of the title ... Pavone risks whipsawing the reader as he springs surprise after surprise about how these two got to Portugal and what they were really up to. And he trots out a villainous character from an earlier book to cast a shadow over this one, which feels like recycling ... Two Nights in Lisbon strays so far from its original setup that it feels like more than one book ... Pavone ratchets up his story to create impossibly high stakes. There is contemporary political resonance in the real story he’s telling ... Ariel has experienced victimhood throughout her multiple lives, and the author has trouble balancing her obvious strength with her history of having been exploited. You could argue that this matters to the book’s denouement or just deem it hard to buy ... He is setting up a whopper of an ending, one that may be too much for even his most devoted readers, who have had to grapple with the implausible before ... Although Pavone fans may find Two Nights in Lisbon quite a stretch, this smart, calculating author remains many notches above others in his field. He is worldly and inviting when it comes to the book’s mostly European settings. His book captures a vacation’s escapism even as its heroine feels walls closing in. And his smaller scenes, like those set in Ariel’s bookstore, feel much less forced than his high-stakes ones.
Only Pavone knows their secrets, and he reveals them slowly and deliberately, expertly seeding the novel with intrigue and suspense, one page at a time ... the collision of both characters’ pasts and presents fuels the increasingly thrilling tension ... packed with stay-awake-all-night thrills for readers.
Pavone has that special ability to construct plots that are artworks in their own right, marvels of architecture and intelligence. He’s at it again in this jaw-dropping thriller ... Pavone uses byzantine plotting to do more than exhaust his readers; with all their surprises, his plots are finally tools to reveal character. Another jewel in an already-bedecked crown.
Despite the quick back-and-forth between past and present, and the deluge of characters, the story turns out to have an interesting and unexpected conclusion ... Fans of Chris Bohjalian’s Cassie Bowden and Camilla Läckberg’s Faye Adelheim may be sympathetic to Ariel’s plight and able to overlook the high page count.
Excellent ... Resplendent with myriad twists in a multilayered plot combining domestic suspense with the spy novel ... Two Nights in Lisbon spins on the various points of view of its realistic characters and an outlandish, though believable, plot that Pavone takes in unusual directions ... Pavone's sophisticated plotting delivers a superb thriller in Two Nights in Lisbon.
... excellent ... Pavone skillfully layers plot details, often shifting points of view, all the way to the end of this superior, elegantly crafted yarn. The enigmatic central character, whose moral compass is set a bit differently than most, sets this above the pack.
Moving between past and present and among the viewpoints of Ariel and her several observers, Pavone uses short scenes to build fast-paced tension ... Surprise builds on surprise, and although the reader may sense where the complicated plot is headed, the twists keep coming. Two nights in Lisbon sound like a fun vacation as long as someone isn’t trying to uncover a horrible secret from your past ... This high-stakes drama grabs your attention and doesn’t let go.
