Heather’s Bookshelf: Something in the Water
Author: Dean Comyn
Released: 11/12/19
Genre: Thriller
“A few metres beyond the second door was blackness. He shook off the uneasy question about whether he was experiencing tunnel vision. His eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. Older, not old, he decided.”
“Something in the Water” begins with the disappearance of Dr. Nicholas Veda and his girlfriend Kaia Rebane. When Detective Chief Inspector John C. Wayne gets the call that they are missing, he hopes the couple has just given their detail the slip, but fears something much worse is actually in play.
As the unit chief of the newly formed MCU2, Wayne makes the decision to call in Charles Burns for his prior experience and expertise in extraction and hostage recovery. However, Burns is not yet a member of MCU2 and is assigned the position of Training Specialist, limiting his capacity on the team. His skills quickly shine through, as does his arrogance, when he sets out to investigate what happened to Dr. Veda and Ms. Rebane.
His investigation leads him on an international chase for the truth in order to prevent something terrible from getting out into the world.
Trigger Warning: adult language, murder, torture
Overall, I enjoyed this story but had some difficulty with some of the structure and characters. The pacing, especially in the beginning was good and the tale throws you right into the mystery of what happened. However, the sentence and paragraph structures made some portions of the novel difficult to get into. I also didn’t connect with the main character, Burns, at all. I found him to be unlikeable, arrogant, and irritating at times. I actually like an antihero as a protagonist, but there was not much redeeming about this guy for me to like. Random side note: I used to live in Iceland and wish these scenes were better described as it is such a unique countryside. I also question the logistics of a tunnel in a country that consistently has volcanos and earthquakes. It was alluded to a little, but I found it a little unbelievable. The ending felt a little too open ended to me as the author literally lists all the unresolved issues. Of course, this is a book one, so hopefully these items will be wrapped up in the next one.
I received a copy of this story in exchange of a fair and honest review.
OVERALL REVIEW:
An interesting premise which draws you in but becomes challenging with the structure and likeability of the main character.
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Check out my interview with Dean Comyn
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