Read: Pines, by Blake Crouch.
There’s a TV adaptation of this book, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, currently airing on Fox; without reservation, I think that’s a good thing, because this book is perfect TV fodder. In some respects, it felt like a less frantic version of The Maze Runner, in that there’s nothing special about the writing but the story moves along at such a steady clip that you don’t really notice.
The setup is simple enough: Special Agent Ethan Burke wakes up in the smallest of small-towns, Wayward Pines, bruised and bloodied and barely remembering his objective - to track down two other associates who went missing en route to the town. Things develop from there in a number of directions, escalating to a conclusion so bonkers that I couldn’t help but wonder where the second and third books take the story.
Lately, I’ve been craving books like this - pulpy, non-literary, high-concept blockbuster nonsense. Studying English at university has a tendency to hammer all the fun out of reading, but even more so it cultivates a certain level of snobbishness when it comes to literature; there’s an idea that so-called “low culture” just isn’t worth your time. That’s not true, though - there’s a sense of fun to books that ignore literary ambition that their higher-minded cousins just don’t have, no matter how well they’re written. Reading something like this makes me hopeful for my own work, too, which skews more toward simplicity than impenetrable metaphor.