Pines (Blake Crouch)

Pines
The Wayward Pines trilogy, Book 1
Blake Crouch
Thomas and Mercer
Fiction, Mystery/Sci-Fi/Thriller
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Wayward Pines, Idaho - a nice place to visit, but you'll never leave...
After two colleagues disappeared in the small town, Secret Service agent Ethan Burke and his partner were on their way to investigate when a truck crashed into their car. Waking alone, memory scrambled, with no ID and no wallet, he soon realizes there's something very, very strange about Wayward Pines. On the surface, it looks like something out of an old TV show, with its almost car-free Main Street and neighborhoods of classic Victorian houses and friendly folks on every corner... but there are no TVs, no contact with the outside world, and he can't seem to get a straight answer on what happened to his partner or his personal effects, let alone what happened to the missing agents he was sent to locate. Just beneath the surface lies a dark secret, one that someone is going to extreme lengths to protect... one that may well kill Ethan if he digs too deep.

REVIEW: I figured I needed a change of pace, and I don't read a lot of thrillers, so this looked like a decent choice. (I'd also heard a few things about the series, so I was curious.) It starts quickly, building a nice sense of surreal danger in the less-than-idyllic small town. Ethan's past - time as a tortured POW in the Middle East and other personal demons - creates plausible reasons to question whether he is being paranoid or if the whole world really is out to get him. Hints and clues and terrifying incidents ratchet up the tension in a fast-paced plot loaded with creepiness, action, and more than a little gore, with nobody acting overtly stupid (as some authors stoop to in order to facilitate the story or obscure plot holes.) It builds up to a reveal that both explains everything (or at least enough to satisfy the reader) and sets up the next book in the trilogy; I was half-expecting the story to run head-first into a cliffhanger ending, obligating me to read further if I wanted to know what was going on and why. I enjoyed it more than I expected to, and might consider reading onward when I next need a quick-reading change of pace.

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