My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
After reading my first Linwood Barclay novel a few weeks ago, No Time for Goodbye, I knew I wanted to read more from Barclay, so decided to go back to the beginning and read his first novel, Bad Move.
Bad Move is the first of the Zack Walker series - Zack is a science fiction writer, husband, father of two teenagers, safety obsessed person, and self proclaimed jerk (he uses a stronger word than that in the book though). As a result of his obsession with safety that he convinces his family to move out of the danger infested city and into the safety of the burbs. It seems though, despite Zack's best intentions, he just can't seem to stay out of trouble, and a series of one bad event after another ensues.
My rating of this book is based purely on entertainment value. This is not the best mystery I've ever read, but I thought Barclay did a clever thing here with a balance of suspense-like plot, and humor. Many times I found myself laughing out loud. And the plot, once it really got going kept me turning the pages. Parts of the plot were quite predictable, but given how I enjoyed the comedic bits, I'd give that a pass. I'll be looking forward to see what capers Zack gets into in the next book in the series, Bad Guys.
Sidebar...I hate snakes, petrified of them actually. I can't even look at pictures of snakes. If someone talks about snakes, it's possible I'll have a snake nightmare that night. There is a very large snake that is a part of this book, thank goodness in small quantities, but I did find myself wanting to skip these parts.
This is my eleventh book read for the 7th Annual Canadian Book Challenge.
Nice review. I have been interested in trying this series by Linwood Barclay. I think his other books are too scary for me. This will help me decide about the Zack Walker series.
ReplyDeleteThanks Tracy! In comparison to the only other Barclay book that I've read, this one definitely had a much lighter tone.
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