Book #16: Look Both Ways by Linwood Barclay
Look Both Ways by Linwood Barclay
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Self-driving cars are something that people seem to have been talking about for years, and this felt like a timely novel. The biggest problem with this book was that the central concept, involving self-driving cars being sabotaged, felt like it had been done before.
This is the second Linwood Barclay novel that I've read involving industrial sabotage (it seems that he has a thing for it), the other being "Elevator Pitch". The premise is that a fleet of self-driving cars has been shipped out to an island community, and everyone is given one to replace their own cars.
Early in the book, the head of a rival firm implants a virus in the self-driving cars that makes them turn against the humans, mostly by behaving like pack animals, so there are lot of scenes with the cars attempting to run people over, as well as killing the director of the firm that created them.
This book felt like a combination of science fiction and horror, and it took a while to get into, but I started enjoying it, and rooting for the characters.
As for the negatives, there were a few cringeworthy moments, like a couple having sex in a self-driving car in the opening chapters. Like some of Linwood Barclay's other novels (like his Promise Falls books), there were a lot of characters, and it was occasionally hard to keep up with all of their separate plotlines. Other than this, the only real issue was that the ending felt a little anti-climatic.
Overall, I thought this was okay, and would probably give it a 3.5 rating if I could; it delivered a few plot twists that I didn't see coming, including the real motivation behind the sabotage. This book included some memorable characters who I hope Linwood Barclay revisits in future novels.
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