Though the term rarely applies, Colin Harrison's Afterburn is a literary thriller in the best sense of both words, a deceptively intricate study of man's basest instincts told in ferocious, compulsively readable language. With his characters constantly hanging on the precipice between life and death, Harrison frees himself to cut to the gristle of human experience, forging a story from blood, sex, torture, and vanity. But beneath all the shows of hyper-masculinity—even the women here are masculine—the book conveys an undercurrent of sorrow, as three protagonists come to terms with their past transgressions. Principal among them is 58-year-old Charlie Ravich, Harrison's man in full, a Vietnam veteran and electronics tycoon whose killer instinct segues from a jungle hooch in 1972 to a formal banquet in 1999 Hong Kong. In one early scene, he watches a gambling mogul choke to death, uses this inside information to short-sell the man's stock, and walks away with $8 million in profit before the markets close. But his life back home in Manhattan is deeply troubled: With his son recently succumbing to leukemia, his wife in the early stages of Alzheimer's, and his daughter unable to conceive a child, Ravich takes out an ad for a surrogate mother to keep his genetic stamp alive. Enter Christina Welles, a fiercely intelligent 27-year-old released from prison under mysterious circumstances, especially considering that she was really guilty of involvement in a mob-backed truck-theft scheme. Her tough but slow-witted ex-husband scours the city determined to protect her from gangsters who need her phenomenal skill with numbers to pull off their elaborate heists. Like any good thriller, Afterburn effortlessly tangles their stories into a tight knot, but Harrison has more on his mind than a handful of (admittedly nasty) twists. Ravich's quest to have a child, for example, seems to be driven by appalling hubris when he proposes to support it through the age of 21 without ever laying eyes on it. But his genetic contribution becomes a poignant response to the death and decay within his family and within himself. Afterburn opens with an epigram from Sartre about how torture is not the route to people's real secrets, then proves in virtuoso style that they can only access them when brushing against their own mortality.