Bonded

Bonded is the fourth novel in a series from Ian Austin. It’s another escapade of Dan Calder who has returned from the UK with his family to reside in sunny Auckland. The storyline is loosely based on the author’s past life as a police officer and detective. Dan has a wife in a coma and a son with health issues. He can’t cope with either so buries himself in his work and luckily has a long-suffering nanny to look after his son and visit his wife.

Another reviewer said if you like John Grisham then you’ll like this. I’ve read one John Grisham and that was enough. I think Bonded is a man’s book – not that I’m into ‘chick lit’ – but I found its level of detail about a red alert event at the airport too in-depth and I skipped over it. And quite frankly it was boring. I needed more cat and mouse, not details of how airports work during emergency situations. I did learn this: flights are in five-minute increments – for example, there’s never an 11:34am flight, it’s 11:35am and it’s the same at airports around the world. Something you never think about but it makes sense.

Anyhoo, at the front of the book there’s a page with 10 definitions of the word bond, which I found interesting as who knew the word could have so many meanings? ‘Policeofficer’ is written as one word throughout the book which is weird and my proof-reader brain didn’t like it.

After far too long a wait at the boarding gate, this book suddenly picked up and we were off flying like a robber’s dog! And now I’m engaged and want to know the ending. There was a good twist that mixed things up towards the end but the last sentence I found implausible. Bonded has a happy ending of course, a bit American for me. I’m a tough nut to crack it seems.