Cool Concept!
Jennifer Adams is having a bad day. First she finds her boss, Dr Storm, dead in her car, then she gets a call from her estranged husband to say their son has been kidnapped by eco-terrorists. He doesn’t tell the police, but there’s a ransom note: they have four days to find “Dr Storm’s answer”. What follows is a fast-paced thriller set in a self-contained biosphere five miles under the ocean (think the Eden Project meets The Abyss meets Stephen King’s The Dome). It’s supposed to be uninhabited, so where did that submarine come from? Who is the strange man in white? And how does this all relate to finding Dr Storm’s answer, and saving Reese?
Jennifer was a good character—intelligent and driven, but her family still came first. Mark, her husband, was a harder character to like at first, but he developed well as the story progressed, and I could see why he had been secretive at first. The plot was complex and detailed, with a very cool underlying concept, lots of twists and an ending that was reassuringly unpredictable.
There were a few typos, as well as some writing glitches (overuse of italics, and errors like a saluting a corporal). The “he thought” lines felt wrong (point of view tells us who’s thinking), although I did find I stopped noticing the errors as I got into the story and the pace increased. And increased, to the point it felt too fast. It was one action scene after another, with no down time between scenes to reflect on what was happening (something I felt was necessary both for me as the reader, and for the characters. People who act without thinking invariably make mistakes …).
The concept was great, the characters were interesting, and while The Depths isn’t Christian fiction, it was free from swearing, sex and graphic violence (there was a lot of violence, but it didn’t go in to unnecessary detail). Good, but could be improved.
Thanks to the author for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Nick Thacker at his website.
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