3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Debut Thriller is a Jaw Dropper!, June 12, 2010
This review is from: Switch (Paperback)
Reason for Reading: The summary of this debut book by a resident Canadian had me very interested.
All I can start out with is a big WOW! This is not quite my usual fare of thriller which usually consists of the serial killer variety so I was not prepared for the intense serial-ness of this book. What an incredible story that in truth could happen to anyone. As the book first started off, I was reminded of a popular Hitchcock devise of the innocent man finding himself caught up in the middle of evil doings. These are innocent men, simple men, regular Joe's who have been brought into the spider's lair to play his nasty game. He kidnaps their families and then the men must do exactly as he says, being given missions of increasing moral complexity, or else he will kill the family.
As we enter the book, one man is at the end of his mission and believes that his wife and daughter have been murdered. At the same time another man has been brought into the game with the kidnapping, given the rules and his first mission. Eventually the two men meet and figure out a connection between themselves, thus trying to find a connection between them and the dead or injured, so they can figure out who hates them so much to be doing this, when they have never done anything illegal in their lives before.
This book starts off running and does not stop until the end. The chapters are quite short making this a very easy book to just keep going 'one more chapter' until the wee hours of the night. The fast pace means a lot of action, while this usually means character development suffers, in this case it doesn't. McKenzie has his story revolving around a tight set of events and characters and the backstory up to that point flesh out the characters for us as do the conversations the men have and the moral choices they make as they fulfill their often deadly assignments.
The narrative is for the most part in the present with the two men but ever so occasionally we are briefly taken to the kidnap victims' points of view to understand the terror they are going through and the utmost futility that they may be saved. Then again on even fewer occasions we are shown the evil mastermind's point of view, hear his rantings, and know he is very clever, though he remains a mystery.
An amazingly intense read. Very scary, even though these characters do have a connection with each other, it is not a sinister one and the reader could visualize that some psycho could pick any group of people, possibly including themself, to play his sick and deadly game. This is one that hits home, uncomfortably close. How far would you go to save your family's lives?
Read this one!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Debut Novel!, May 16, 2010
This review is from: Switch (Paperback)
This is a very fast paced, constant action novel that with short James Patterson like chapters lets you do the just one more chapter before I put it down thing, and before you know it you've finished the book. Fans of Harlan Coben or Linwood Barclay style plots will enjoy this book although by jumping straight into the action we never really get to know the two main average guys (especially with Zack, we slightly do with Sam) or put ourselves in those shoes for the imagine if this was me, what would I do scenario like those two authors brilliantly pull off. But we have to remember this is Grant McKenzie's first novel, those guys have been writing for decades.
McKenzie also writes in an a lot of the time hide the identity of the character for a while in a scene style by describing them from another characters point of view or simply saying the woman. This is obviously to create a bit of mystery such as who is this woman, who is the attacker but if you're paying attention you'll work out who it obviously is or more importantly is not so you know whose left by process of elimination which sort of makes writing this way unnecessary and misses out on the reader really experiencing what's happening from that character's point of view to its full extent.
Set in Portland Oregon, basic plot of Switch is two nice middle aged guys, Sam and Zack, one a successful surgeon, one who never achieved his dreams of being an actor, both find their families have been killed. However both are shocked to receive a call from a caller telling them, they're still alive, for now! They must perform a number of evil tasks for the caller, and in the time they are not doing these tasks come up with 1 million dollars, if they do all this the caller will return the family members. If they refuse, a task, fail or tell the police their loved ones will be killed. Why is this happening to them, is it personal? They must figure it out as it's pretty obvious the caller doesn't have any intention of returning the family members alive.
It's a great story and very enjoyable read, I'll definitely check out his next book No Cry for Help.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A bloody good read..., December 30, 2009
I don't know why most of the reviewers on here have trashed 'Switch' as I really enjoyed it. This was a fast-paced and action-packed book from start to finish. The plot was well-constructed with plenty of action that was both absorbing and entertaining and I was particularly impressed by the clever use of two entwined plots. This book was so engaging that I stayed up until 3am to finish it! I've read many novels of the crime/thriller genre and I believe this author has nailed it first time. Grab yourself a copy of 'Switch'. You WON'T be disappointed.
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