URBAN FANTASY REISSUE REVIEW: The Watcher - Charles MacLean

Release Date: 05/01/12

SYNOPSIS:

'There was no warning of any kind...' Friday rush-hour. Martin Gregory, laden with packages, just manages to catch the 4.48 train. Tomorrow is his wife's birthday - he has a surprise in store - and he plans to devote the weekend to her and their beloved dogs. But Saturday morning, Martin rises early and does something so horrific, so inexplicable and so out of character, and his only option is to run ...And from this shocking incident the journey begins. With the help of a therapist he can't trust, and friends who no longer trust him, Martin's quest for meaning takes him down shifting realities and twisted corridors of time into the deepest recesses of the human mind. It is a world of menace and obsession from which neither he - nor the reader - can escape, for Martin Gregory is either lost in a dark maze of madness and horror, or frighteningly sane.


REVIEW:

This is a reissue of the book originally released back in Eighties and whilst for a lot of people it’s a title that will entice them from the glossy cover, it’s one that sadly shows its age which might not live up to readers expectations in the modern world. Whilst the opening if bloody and will firmly grab the reader, it’s one that will either have you craving for more or wondering if you should keep reading. It’s one hell of a start and as the book progresses we get to find out through the use of hypnosis the keys that have caused the principle players actions.

Add to this a book told from two points of view (the principle character Martin and his psychologist Dr Somerville) it quickly throws you into disarray as to whom is playing who as well as which way it’s going to end up. If you look past the errors and a lot of the modern demands on a book it is enticing and it is one that will have you asking questions throughout but for me. It’s not one that stands the test of time so well.