Tuesday 22 April 2014

The Carbon Trail by Catriona King (a review)

A man finds himself in a shower, in a bathroom. There is a lot of blood. It is not his, but he has no idea of who's it is......or who he, himself is!!!

The man, it turns out, is Jeff Mitchell, a research scientist working with a new form of carbon. He has a wife, a child (neither of whom he knows) and very little clue as to what is happening or why.

All through the story bits of information are drip fed through as Mitchell finds bits of his memory coming back but, and here's the catch, some of the memories that are coming back to him don't seem to be his! Add to mix the fact that he has been under surveillance for 9 months, his boss wants to make deals to sell his research to foreign powers and Mitchell himself is (was) planning to double cross his boss and give the research elsewhere and you have yourself a fantastic read that may well keep you reading well into the dark hours of the night.

I found this to be a really clever story, lots of twists and turns and even when things start to come together it is not obvious how things are going to end.

Catriona King is the author of the Marc Craig/ Belfast Murder Squad series and The Carbon Trail sees her move to new characters and a new setting (New York). As with the Marc Craig books the characters are well developed, the kind you can actually care about. This is a big, ballsy thriller that brought to mind the works of Dean Koontz and Michael Crichton. With this book Catriona King has really upped her game (and the bar was set at a very high level to start with)

4.5/5 stars

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