I could never contemplate leaving for a holiday without having a book to accompany me. However the day before we left I was struggeling to find something worthy of my attention in my local Book chain. Having browsed the new releases, my favourite authors, crime and sci-fi I was reduced to wandering from A to Z of authors by name... A rather desperate endeavour until The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall caught my eye. Great title and a rather interesting cover in a world where you can usually tell a books genre from it's cover.
Now my regular reader will know that I can be given to over enthusiasm but please believe me when I say this is the best thriller I've read in a long time. It's a breath of fresh air for thrillers like The Matrix was for movies. It's probably best approached completely fresh so I wont be mentioning anything about the plot suffice to say it's maybe a Moby Dick for our day. It's very well written. The pacing of the plot is good. It's not a collection of set pieces. It doesn't lag in the middle. The characters are well developed. Most importantly it makes you think with out being to obtuse or clever clever for it's own good. It also does things as interesting with the written page as The Matrix did on screen with it's bullet time and wire battles.
Thorougly recommended. I'll be watching Steven Halls future work (this is his debut novel) with interest.
*****
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