In the first book of Blake Crouch's haunting mystery trilogy, secret agent Ethan Burke tries to grasp the shifts in time, widespread conspiracies, and grand plans for Wayward Pines--while trying to avoid being killed by murderous small-town vigilantes or by mysterious, horrifying creatures lurking beyond the town's fence.
In Pines, the first book in Blake Crouch's Wayward Pines trilogy, secret agent Ethan Burke wakes up in a strange place, by a river, horribly bruised and in pain--with no memory of his own name, his job, or his history--much less what has happened to leave him in such a state.
As his memory comes back to him in pieces, he recalls that his mission--before the devastating car crash upon his arrival in town that left him reeling--was to locate two missing federal agents who were dispatched a month earlier to investigate a mysterious billionaire's potential financial crimes in Wayward Pines, Idaho. The agents haven't been heard from in weeks.
Setting out on this job was hairy enough--one of the agents is his former lover, Kate, and Ethan's wife Theresa is not happy that Ethan is involved in the search for her.
But as Ethan learns more about the car accident and about the strange town of Wayward Pines, he develops more questions than answers. He can't get through to his wife and family in Seattle or to his boss, no one in town seems to believe he is who he says he is, and he's not sure whether the electric fence surrounding the town is meant to keep something sinister out or to stop residents from leaving.
Over a third of the beginning of the book is focused upon the dynamic in which Ethan asserts that he needs help, then is sidestepped or disregarded. No one listens to Ethan, cares about his concerns, or assists him. I began to tire of this ongoing frustration.
Then Ethan finds the remains of Bill Evans (not the jazz pianist and composer of the same name), and he could swear he glimpses Kate. But the stakes for stepping out of line in Wayward Pines, asking uncomfortable questions, or asserting that problems exist are grave--and potentially deadly. And horrifying dangers lurk for those who seek to escape.
Ethan has spent several days in the small town when Pines shifts to the point of view of Ethan's wife, who is in Seattle grieving her loss and the disappearance of Ethan...fifteen months earlier. Theresa's mysterious encounter with an odd man makes it even more clear that time is not passing in a normal fashion.
Developments near the end of the book set up Ethan's complicity in the grand, nefarious conspiracy in Wayward Pines--but it seems doubtful that in the next book he will adhere to the rules of the ringleader of the elaborate plan.
I was intrigued by the story's concept but wanted more character development to anchor me within the ever-evolving revelations surrounding the world of Wayward Pines, its shifting time, and the implications of these.
I listened to Pines as an audiobook. The two other titles in the series are Wayward and The Last Town.
I'd love to hear your Bossy thoughts about this book!
You can find my review of Blake Crouch's Upgrade here, my review of his novel Recursion (mentioned in the Greedy Reading List Six Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore) here, and my review of Dark Matter here.
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