Elevator Pitch by Linwood Barclay
This book starts with what initially appears to be a tragic accident, but after a series of similar fatalities, is realised to be an act of terrorism. It also features a corpse whose fingertips have been removed, which inevitably turns out to be connceted to the incidents, though the purpose to disfiguring the body turned out to be something more mundane than I had hoped for.
The best bits of this book were the terrorist incidents, which were some of the most gripping moments I'd read in any book, mostly because I could tell something bad was going to happen, and then the book would subvert my expectations.
The narrative managed to do a good job of faking the reader out at times, and creating moments where it appeared that someone had avoided a disaster, only for something else terrible to happen, and then it became a case of just waiting for the inevitable. I also noticed that this was somewhat more gruesome than most other Linwood Barclay novels that I had read, almost feeling more like a horror novel in places.
The only real issue I had with this book was that, in between the terrorist incidents, the narrative felt like it dragged a bit. There was a variety of characters, including a newspaper columnist, and the apparently dodgy mayor of New York (possibly modelled on Rudy Giuliani) who she was trying to smear. There also a detective who had apparently developed asthma as the result of a mistake he made in the line of duty, but he seemed to not get as big a role in the novel as he should have, despite ending up as a key player towards the end.
Overall, this book felt a little similar to Linwood Barclay's Promise Falls novels, as it involved a series of incidents with no apparent motive, but introduced politics into the narrative. The thing I liked most about this book was that there was a lot of subtext about our dependence on technology, with even some implicit social commentary about how obsessed people in modern times are with mobile phones. One character ended up nearly dying after stepping in front of a vehicle while looking at her mobile phone, and later in the book, a couple ended up dying as a result of being distracted by their phones. I was instantly put in mind of every single time I've seen someone walking down the street staring at their phone, oblivious to anything around them (one of my biggest pet peeves as I feel like I spend a lot of my lives attempting to dodge them).
The climax of this book was worth waiting for, as it increased the tension significantly, and the only issues were that - while I understood the culprit's motives - their modus operandi seemed slightly odd, and that the resolution seemed a bit too fast when it arrived.
Overall, though, this was an enjoyable book, and Linwood Barclay also managed to throw in a few red herrings. I didn't think this was quite as good as some of his best novels, but it was far from being his worst.