Saturday 3 July 2021

Book ~ "Unthinkable" (2021) Brad Parks

From Goodreads ~ Nate Lovejoy is a self-proclaimed nobody, a stay-at-home dad who doesn’t believe he’s important to anyone but his wife and their two daughters. So it’s a shock when members of a powerful secret society kidnap and spirit Nate away to a mansion at the behest of their leader, Vanslow DeGange, who claims to know the future. He’s foreseen that a billion people could die - unless Nate acts.

It seems improbable, especially given what DeGange says will set this mass casualty incident in motion: a lawsuit against the biggest power company in Virginia, being brought by Nate’s wife, Jenny.

Nate quickly smells a scam being perpetrated by the power company. But at every turn, it becomes apparent there’s more to DeGange’s gift than Nate wants to acknowledge. A billion people really could die, and Nate might be the only one who can save them.

All he has to do is the unthinkable. 

Nate is a former lawyer and now a stay-at-home father of two young daughters.  His wife, Jenny, is a lawyer who is building a pro bono case against a large power company whose generators are suspected to be causing cancer in local residents.  

Nate is kidnapped one day and told that because of the ripple effect of his wife's case, billions will die.  So Nate is ordered he has to kill Jenny or he and his family will be killed.  

He had been kidnapped by a secret society whose leader claims to be able see into the future.  Nate is disbelieving at first (he assumes it's the power company that had him kidnapped because of Jenny's case) but as he investigates, he is eventually convinced that this is indeed true.  As a reader, you have to leave your sense of belief at the door and go with it.  Though he obviously doesn't want to kill his wife, Nate is led to believe that this is his only course of action and he has to do the unthinkable.

I was liking the story up until the point where Nate was ready to shoot Jenny.  But then it took a weird turn that I shook my head over and I started losing interest because it became too fanciful.  I thought the ending was lame and unrealistic.

I liked the writing style.  It is written in first person perspective in Nate's voice and third person perspective when the focus is on Jenny (the chapters are labeled).

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