REVIEW for The 13th hour

Thank you goes out to Simon & Schuster for sending me this novel.






TITLE: The 13th Hour

AUTHOR: Richard Doetsch

GENRE: Thriller

RATING: 4 Stars

I use to read alot of thrillers and then just felt "burnout" over them - mainly because they became to predictable and frankly "not thrillling in the least". So, I was both a litte weary and yet intrigued when I saw this book.

I had never heard of this author before and read the sleeve to find out about the story and as soon as I started reading it, I knew that this was one I was going to have to read. This book reminded me of Star Trek's "1st Directive (I think it is) - which basically says that if you go back into the past, you have to make sure you don't alter the future in any way and the movie Groundhog Day (minus the comedy).

Our main character Nick is having a bad day - and its about to multiply itself over and over again. His wife is killed and if Nick does not figure out who killed her, he is going to be facing some serious allegations. Enter the solution - a pocket watch which will give him the opportunity of going back in time - 1 hour (60 minutes) at a time. As Nick goes back in time, he will find a series of mysteries and leads that will force him to reconcile himself to the past and the present - basically living in a time warp where he is the only one who really knows what the future holds for the people he interacts with. In the process, he will find out some things that he probably wishes he had not found out.

This thriller is very, very exciting. Once you settle down to the back and forth and having to untangle the pieces of the puzzle by working backwards in "real time for the actual characters - except Nick" the mystery AND the storyline really pick up.

This story is extremely clever and I just loved the fact that you never quite knew what or who would come up next. Although this book is, at its core, a thriller set to entertain, it also makes you think . How many times have you wished you could go back and "do it over" or "find something out before everyone else"? what if you knew your future?

This book is fast paced and I could not put it down. I loved it.