Across the globe, five strangers receive a horrifying message from an unknown number.
THE PERSON YOU LOVE MOST IS IN DANGER.
To save them, each must play The Game – a sinister unknown entity that has a single rule: there can only be one winner.
IF YOU LOSE, YOUR LOVED ONE WILL DIE.
but what is the game – and why have they been chosen?
There’s only one thing each of them knows for sure: they’ll do anything to win…
WELCOME TO THE GAME. YOU’VE JUST STARTED PLAYING.
May I offer a word of warning? If you pick up a copy of this book to read, and I hope you will, you will not be able to put it down. It will hook you, ensnare you and you will not be able to stop reading it, so compulsive is this book.
Not perhaps what you might expect from a debut novel? When is a debut novel not a debut novel? When it’s one like this I venture to suggest! It’s a bold tale, full of tensions and twists. It’s fast paced. There is a pleasing fusion between our contemporary world of mobile phones, satnavs, Internet domination, social media influencers with some of the cyber resistant institutions within air travel, motorways and traversing significant distances in real time. Tapping into the popular, contemporary pastime of gaming but taking it to a nefarious and sinister level.
It’s quite frightening in places. The writer has not shied away from the graphic. The buildup and guts of the novel were akin to a white knuckle ride. The conclusion was unexpected, to be sure, but I found myself with a host of unanswered questions. I wonder possibly whether a second read might reveal clues I previously missed or expose plot holes which I don’t really want to find. I will admit I couldn’t read it fast enough.
The five main characters are all very diverse and not just from different backgrounds and circumstances but from differing geographic locations. This all adds to the intrigue and the perplexing dilemma of what it is about these five people that have landed them in this unnerving Game. As the story progresses, though, the reader is required to suspend belief to a degree - the unanswered questions I referred to earlier. It’s the nature of fiction up to a point though isn’t it? The book is entertaining and it’s well written. There are some challenging issues that were not necessarily explored within the narrative, that wasn’t the point I didn’t feel, but there’s stuff there to make you think.
It’s an exciting debut novel, original and not as formulaic as some thrillers from seasoned authors can turn out to be. So I would suggest that Scott Kershaw is an exciting prospect for the future of the thriller.
My thanks to HQ stories for a copy of the book and a place upon the blog tour.
Scott Kershaw lives in Lincolnshire, in a Victorian cottage that was formally ruled by mice. He likes the crackle of vinyl, the smell of paperbacks, the taste of a stiff drink and the view from the front-row barrier. He’s getting too old and heavy for crowd surfing, but that rarely stops him from trying. His first real love was cinema. His beagle, Darwin, is the one true king of dogs. As a child, Scott believed in monsters. Sometimes he still does. The Game is his debut thriller.
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