Look Both Ways - Linwood Barclay

Description

They think as one. They act as one. They kill as one.

‘Look Both Ways is devilishly good – exciting, thrilling – Barclay at his best!’ SHARI LAPENA, No. 1 internationally bestselling author

The residents of Garrett Island are part of a ground-breaking experiment. For a month, their cars will be replaced by self-driving vehicles – voice-controlled, comfortable and safe.

Single mum Sandra is prepping for the huge media event, and she’s ready for a driverless future. Widowed after her husband fell asleep at the wheel, she’s relieved that her kids may never need to drive themselves.

But as the day gets underway, disaster strikes. A journalist vanishes, possibly murdered. And before long, it’s clear something is very wrong. The cars are no longer taking orders from their passengers. They’re starting to organise. They’re starting to hunt. And they’ve got the residents of Garret Island in their sights.

Review

Different from the author's other books. This was not the usual read from Linwood Barclay, but that was no bad thing for me.

I listened to the audio version of this book. The narrator took a little getting used to I found. He had some very dramatic pauses which were not warranted. At first I thought the player was stuck as the pause was so long. Once I settled in to his nuances I was ok with listening.

This is an 8 hour read, after I reached 4 hours of listening I began to wonder what else could happen for there to be that long left. I thought everything that could happen more or less had happened and pretty good it was too. I couldn't have been more wrong as there was plenty of action to come and twists.

The story is told from the perspectives of several of the residents of Garrett Island and their interaction with the AI Arrival cars. I liked all of the characters, which turned out to be a little misguided, but that was the beauty of the writing. Once things begin to happen with the Arrival cars there's a lot of descriptive action which I found better being read out on the audio. I think I may have scan read some of it if I had been reading. For that reason I think it would make an excellent film.

It's certainly food for thought with the driverless car future we are headed for. I'm giving this book 5 out of 5 stars. My thanks to netgalley for the audio file to review.

Comments

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