Genius and Shocking

Pines: Wayward Pines #1 by Blake Crouch

Mystery/Sci-Fi

I have read literally thousands of books and not one ever like this.  Wow!  The ending and premise is both genius and shocking.  This book is full of shocks and surprises right up until the very end.  You feel like a passenger in an out-of-control cab driven by a a madman.  You just don't know what will happen next.

Ethan Burke is a Secret Service agent who has been sent to the town of Wayward Pines, Idaho, to find two missing agents, one of whom he has been having an affair with.  Ethan just arrives in town when he is in a car accident ad wakes up in the hospital.  That's when things start to turn weird. Weird like he's not allowed to leave the hospital or call anyone and they take all his stuff and won't give it back. So, Ethan escapes only to discover that he can't!  The town is surrounded by an electric fence and the sheriff is not amused by his antics.  At all!  Ethan questions whether he is insane or whether everyone else it.  When Burke next discovers the mutilated bodies of the missing FBI agents, he knows he is in over his head.  And, that just the beginning of this wild ride!

This is definitely a sci-fi read but you dont' find that out until later, at the end.  It reminded me of the recent Tom Cruise movie Oblivion.  The author said that one of his writing inspirations was the TV series Twin Peaks.  It has a very Stepford Wives-creepy feel to it.  It has that weird and off-kilter vibe to it.  It is the first in the series and I am ardently looking forward to the next installment.