Pines, by Blake Crouch

I really enjoyed Crouch's Run so I was looking forward to another exciting thriller from the author, Pines, and he did not disappoint. While not as dark or scary as Run, Pines was very entertaining and mysterious.

I didn't realize it when I started, but Pines is the first book in a trilogy (the others are Wayward and The Last Town). Even though this is just one third of the whole story, the book has a good structure and is self-contained. That's one thing I like about Crouch--he gets the four-part structure that makes novels entertaining. He also gets concept, which for Pines is: What if a special agent woke up in a strange mountain town after a car accident and couldn't contact the outside world? The secret of the town, Wayward Pines, is slowly revealed throughout the book until the big secret is revealed at the end.

The only part I didn't like was how the town would have murderous search parties to find a traitor where they all dress up in weird Halloween-type costumes. It wasn't believable that so many people would go along with such a bizarre spectacle. But this wasn't a key part of the novel and it didn't ruin a great story executed almost perfectly.