A chillingly crafted novel channelling the dystopian world
that unravels after mobile phones have the ability to send people into crazy
killers, and how those who weren’t affected by “The Pulse” try to survive as
the initially mindless “phone crazies” begin to get smarter. The protagonist
Clay, is a likeable, resourceful guy who we can root for, and his sidekicks Tom
and Alice, are good foils for him, interesting enough in their own right without detracting from Clay's voyage - to get to Maine to find his son. The story sometimes moves a little slowly, with
Stephen King being particularly languid with Clay’s voyage, but there are
shocks galore throughout the book, as well as dark laughs. Well-written with descriptions so vivid you could actually imagine this happening, this is a science fiction novel that even I could enjoy.
Grade: A-
Hickory Dickory Dock (Agatha Christie)
Hercule Poirot gets up to another one of his adventures,
this time, introduced to him by his assistant, Mrs Lemon. Mrs Lemon’s sister
works at a youth housing centre, where things have inexplicably gone missing or
been sabotaged. These petty thefts, however, are soon owned up to, but the
perpetrator then appears to have committed suicide… or did she? As with most
Agatha Christie, the joy isn’t in so much as the whodunit (though I never would
have guessed, I was foiled again!), but in getting to know the characters, this
time, the boarders in the hostel. Each have their idiosyncrasies and quirks,
and it is to Christie’s merit that she pulled the wool over my eyes once again,
and got me suspecting completely the wrong people. Grade: A-
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