Descent-A Novel by Tim Johnston

There are certain books that might actually end up making better movies, or TV shows than novels. In my mind this book is one of them, with certain scenes needing a certain photographed or captured moment to illustrate them properly.

That is not to say that this is a bad book, because it most certainly isn’t. It is however, a book that required for me, a great deal of patience. The suspense I had read about in other people’s reviews did not hit me until about 100 pages in, when I really delved into the characters lives, and what was happening to what had once been a happy, albeit dysfunctional family.

Without spoilers I will tell you that the end of this novel gripped me, the words wrapping themselves around me and encasing me in them. The pages flipped rapidly and I found myself almost anxious to figure out what would happen next, the book held tightly in my hands.

The characters, I discovered had become people that I cared about. Fully fleshed out, and entirely flawed they had come with their own sets of problems, amplified by the trauma of what occurred in the mountains. They were not perfect. There was no perfection in this family, not even in Caitlin but yet that was what I continued to like about them. Their flaws.

This book felt very real to me, the situation unfortunately is one that does arise in life, as we constantly hear news stories about children who have gone missing, teenagers abducted. It was obvious to me that the author had attempted to draw me in with the familiarity of the situation and succeeded in doing so. This was not a book I started out loving, apprehensive of the subject matter and whether it could be dealt with sensitively enough.

It was handled beautifully, by the end, and horrifically (in a good way) at other turns. It is one I recommend to anyone who loves crime fiction, suspense or who is looking for something with a bit of familiarity but something that also manages to be unique.