Mike Driver

This is one of those books you just can't put down once you've started. It is very fast-paced and leaves you out of breath most of the time, just like the main character.
When James Bridge returns home after 20 years, strange things start to happen: paranoid acting childhood friends, leaves moving on their volition, and then another child goes missing. James stumbles through this story trying to make sense of the strange things happening around and to him, while at the same time being repeatedly assaulted from different persons for different reasons. Suddenly, his return home doesn't seem such a good idea at all, but sometime in the past he made a promise he vowed to keep...

I loved the tension the author created and managed to hold throughout the book. The moving leaves suggesting a ghostly presence, the repeated appearance of some mysterious numbers - this all added further suspense and creepiness to an already intriguing puzzle. While my first guess as to the identity of the killer proved to be right, it did not diminish the suspense in reading how James finally reached his own conclusions.

However, after finishing the book I found that not all loose ends where tied up neatly to my satisfaction, leaving some irritating errand strands hanging around. Maybe there where too many different angles and approaches taken (which on the other hand made the story so thrilling and complex), or maybe the author wanted to reserve some answers for the sequel (I definitely hope so).

The writing was really good, but a number of errors, mostly missing or double words (which may be hard to catch with a spell checker) made me stumble over sentences, causing unnecessary breaks in an otherwise fast run through this thrilling book.

All in all, 'Fall, Leaves, Fall' was a compelling thriller and impressive debut novel with a nice ghostly touch to it, and I will definitely watch out for a sequel.

(I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review)… (altro)