Review: Pines by Blake Crouch

A Mysterious Review of …

Pines by Blake Crouch.

Review summary: This is the kind of novel that will keep readers up into the wee hours of the night reading and then once they are no longer able to keep their eyes open, fill their sleep with nightmares. It weaves its way into the reader's mind in such a way that the shock never leaves — even after the last page. (Click here for text of full review.)

Our rating:

Pines
Blake Crouch
Thomas & Mercer (August 2012)

Publisher synopsis: Secret service agent Ethan Burke arrives in Wayward Pines, Idaho, with a clear mission: locate and recover two federal agents who went missing in the bucolic town one month earlier. But within minutes of his arrival, Ethan is involved in a violent accident. He comes to in a hospital, with no ID, no cell phone, and no briefcase. The medical staff seems friendly enough, but something feels … off. As the days pass, Ethan’s investigation into the disappearance of his colleagues turns up more questions than answers. Why can’t he get any phone calls through to his wife and son in the outside world? Why doesn’t anyone believe he is who he says he is? And what is the purpose of the electrified fences surrounding the town? Are they meant to keep the residents in? Or something else out?

Each step closer to the truth takes Ethan further from the world he thought he knew, from the man he thought he was, until he must face a horrifying fact—he may never get out of Wayward Pines alive.