BIRD BOX by JOSH MALERMAN

Yikes, this was a creepy book.  It made me think of the more memorable Twilight Zone episodes I have seen.  I would classify it as Horror, a genre I almost never read, but to my relief it was light on the gore factor and heavier on the suspense side of things.  

It is wisely a fairly short book (my paperback had 258 pages), I only wish I had been able to read it in one go at night…because this book, if you get into it, will make you question those normal creaks and sighs a quiet house makes…perfectly normal sounds…perfectly innocent sounds….nothing to worry about…right? 

The scare factor of Bird Box rests primarily on our fear of the unknown.  In the book, there is something outside which causes humans to go berserk and harm themselves and others when they see it.  To combat this, people have taken to boarding up their windows and if they go outside, they have to use blindfolds.  The main character of the book is Malorie who has been living alone with her two children for four years. At the start of the book, she has decided to take the supreme risk of leaving the house for forever and taking a boat down the river to some sort of sanctuary…and she has to do all this blindfolded with two blindfolded children who are only four years old, not knowing if they will be harmed by the creatures (whatever they are), other humans who may of inexplicably survived and/or other animals. 

My only criticism is the book is that it was a little unclear as to the practicalities of humans and/or dogs surviving on canned food over many years which has a naturally limited shelf life not to mention quantity.  But that is a small niggle. I wanted to read a scary book and this one did the job most adequately! 

This was my second RIP 2017 read which means I have completed Peril the Second! Muah Ha ha! 

SHUTTER ISLAND by DENNIS LEHANE

I can't believe it is October already!  Reading Shutter Island was akin to a rollercoaster ride; it was a little scary but thrilling and once I got going, I couldn’t really stop. I read its 325 pages amazingly quickly, pretty much over the course of one Sunday.  

The initial plot set up is quite simple: two Federal Marshals are sent to investigate the disappearance/ escape of a female inmate at the seemingly impregnable Ashecliff Hospital for the Criminally Insane located on a remote island off the coast of Massachusetts.    

“From the sea it didn’t look like much. You have to picture it the way Teddy Daniels saw it on  that calm morning in September of 1954. A scrub plain in the middle of the outer harbor. Barely an island, you’d think, so much the idea of one. What purpose could it have he may have thought.  What purpose.”    

The story is told in close third person from the perspective of Agent Daniels who is mourning the death of his wife from a few years prior and also probably suffering from what we now call PTSD as a result of his experiences in WWII.  As Daniels investigates the mystery with his new partner Agent Aule, it soon becomes clear that Daniels has a lot of personal baggage that he is lugging around. The reader quickly starts to wonder who Daniels really working for and does he have an ulterior motive for taking this case? And how legitimate is Ashecliff Hospital? Are the rumors of experimental therapy true? 

As the story progresses there are secrets upon secrets to be unearthed and nothing is what it seems or rather, situations can be misinterpreted…what could be considered sinister from one perspective could appear completely benign in a different light.  Lehane did a great job of keeping the reader slightly off balance for about the first half…then the book slips into nightmare-mode filled with acute paranoia and one's sense of reality is dangling only by a thread…

I knew part of the “twist” in the plot, even though I’ve never seen the film, but there were plenty of other reveals and details that I didn’t know that made reading it enjoyable none the less.

This was my first RIP read of 2017! One more chilling yet thrilling book to go.