Published By: Harvill Secker
Pages: 354
Released On: 16/05/2024
It’s a week before the presidential elections when a bomb goes off in an LA shopping mall.
In London, armed police storm Heathrow Airport and arrest Sajid Khan. His daughter, Aliyah entered the USA with the suicide bomber, and now she’s missing, potentially plotting another attack on American soil.
But then a woman called Carrie turns up at Sajid’s door after travelling halfway across the world. She claims Aliyah is with her son and she has a clue to their whereabouts. Carrie knows something isn’t adding up – and that she and Sajid are the only ones who can find their children and discover the truth.
On the run from the authorities, the two parents are thrown together in a race against time to save their kids and stop a catastrophe that will derail the country’s future forever.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Harvill Secker for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I was in the mood for a good thriller, and early reviews had put this right to the top of my list. It’s my first book by Abir and so was looking forward to reading a new talent (new to me, at least).
It didn’t quite hit the heights I wanted, but there were some positive aspects.
I liked the discussion around the unconscious bias we might have regarding terrorist attacks and the ethnicity of the perpetrator. Because as uncomfortable as it might make us feel, it’s true – if a white person does something like this, then it’s because they have mental heath problems and that’s that. But if a person of colour does it, then it’s because of their religion and they’ve been radicalised. And I think Abir has managed to depict that well, without making it too preachy.
It did take me quite a while to get into it. I thought at first it was because I was suffering from a hangover of the previous book I’d read. It’s not that it didn’t start with a bang (pun very much intended), because it did, but I found my focus wandering a bit.
It didn’t flow tremendously for me, it felt a bit stop and start, flitting between characters and settings and back again. I’d say it got more like I was expecting by about 70% through. It wasn’t bad before then, just a bit safe.
The reviews promised shocking twists, but to be honest, apart from the odd one near the end, there weren’t many. And if I’m honest, one twist I had worked out almost instantly.
I did enjoy it, don’t get me wrong, and Abir’s writing is very good. But it wasn’t the explosive addictive thriller I was expecting. It was slow. I hoped that it was just getting started and would pick up as it went, but even by halfway, whilst it was an okay read, it was still quite safe, rather than the tense heart-in-mouth kind of read.
I was waiting for that big “wow” moment that thrillers give you, and there wasn’t one. There were a few “ooh” moments dotted about, but it felt like it was just lacking that thrill I wanted.
Considering how slow I found it, I was actually quite disappointed by the speed in which it ended. We have 300 odd pages of this book that I felt was too slow for a thriller, and then suddenly it was finished, things concluded, dot the i’s and cross the t’s, done, nice and neatly, and that annoyed me slightly. I was hoping the slowness of the rest of the book would be building up to this big finale, and it just was over too quickly.
I can’t tell you that this book is bad, because it isn’t. I read it in less than 24 hours. It’s well written and all absorbing and I can see why people have absolutely loved it, and it won’t put me off reading any of his other books. Looking at other reviews, I can see I’m definitely in the minority. It’s good but it’s not great. It’s fine. And that’s where I think it went wrong for me. I don’t mind if a book is really bad, because then it makes me feel something. But a “fine” book. I don’t like that. Give me one end of the spectrum or the other, make it fantastically good or fantastically book, but don’t make it vanilla, which is how I felt this book was.
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