A Secret Service agent awakens and comes to realize he's either suffered a beating or
been in a terrible accident. He remembers where he is and why
eventually but, like walking up an incline that's constantly shifting,
he's off balance and can never fully right himself. He can't contact his boss, his wife or anyone outside the town of Wayward Pines. And those within the community all seem a little odd, graduating to homicidal and then terrifying.
At least a dozen
times during my reading of Pines I nearly gave up. It's not a relaxing
journey and if you get annoyed by being thoroughly confused, you won't
make it.
What kept me going was the realization that if I was having a
weird trip, the main character, Ethan Burke, was going through three kinds of hell
and it was fascinating to watch him cope.
This is pure action with a
hard twist. Ethan is a resilient hero, perhaps a little more Superman
than I'd prefer (eventually he begins to sound like Lee Child's Jack Reacher whose every punch has cataclysmic impact) but likable and, especially, sympathetic. I could relate to his struggle to comprehend
what the hell was happening to him and why.
If you remember the
iconic 1960's TV series The Prisoner, or even Twin Peaks in 1990, you'll be in
familiar territory. Throw in some Planet of the Apes and you'll feel
right at home.
Pines is the first book in the Wayward Pines series. The second, Wayward, was released this week. Now that I understand the author's concept, I'm curious to see where he takes it.
I gave this book a four out of five star rating on Amazon where the Kindle price is $4.99.
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