The Broken Room

I sat on this book for quite a while in 2022, which seems dumb in retrospect. I like Clines’s work quite a bit, and I found this book difficult to put down. I listened on morning walks and then followed up on my Kindle. This is an incredibly fast read, and I’m sure I would have finished faster if not for the distractions of the holiday season.

In short, I loved this book. It’s fast, and it reads like a movie. It seems almost written for the screen, an updated Bourne or Reacher novel.

Most of the book is a combination of grisly chase scenes stitched together with enough down time for some exposition. It’s all thrill and action with a bit of paranormal and horror thrown in for spice.

I loved both main characters. Hector’s quick thinking and Natalie’s matter-of-fact approach to questions and situations is fun and amusing. Their relationship builds quickly but subtly.

I’d like to know more about Tim and the other side of the Broken Room. Adding more details would have slowed the plot quite a bit, but the other side definitely leaves an opening for more stories. Maybe we’ll see a reference pop up in another future Clines novel. He does a nice job of tying his universe together with a few direct and a few subtle references to other universes. I wonder if Clines considers this a Threshold novel. It might be, and it might not, which is probably exactly how Clines wants it.