Thomas Locke: Trial Run

By Kelly Bridgewater

From Amazon

Back Cover Copy:

Reese Clawson's work is mind-bending--literally. Her company specializes in global data analysis for an elite group of industry executives, and now a lucrative government contract is moving her into the realm of cutting-edge intelligence gathering. She is determined to crack the limits of consciousness--and in doing so, the boundaries of secrets and lies. But her experiment crashes as test subjects slide into a coma-like state. Reese is left scrambling to maintain control, drawing three disparate people into the search for answers--an adrenaline-amped thrill junkie with altered brain chemistry, an Italian scientist working on remote-viewing technology, and a math prodigy whose algorithms subvert computer encryption.

Will this piecemeal team prevail when a government operative is sent to investigate? As the threads of perception and reality become tangled and even time itself twists in unexpected directions, one warning remains clear: what you don't know can kill you.

My Thoughts:

I really couldn’t wait to jump right in and read Thomas Locke’s new book Trial Run. I enjoy suspense and thriller books that feature a threat to our current way of living. I like learning new things when I read a book. I enjoy being taken on a ride that keeps getting worse and worse for the characters in the novel. Even though my opinion on this book is going against the flow, I still will state my opinion. I really did not like Trial Run.

This book would be good for fans of books with a lot of technical jargon and scientific theory. Trial Run has lots and lots of technical jargon. When I read an entire paragraph and had to scratch my head, wondering what Locke just had the character reveal to me, I get confused. It is hard as a reader to not understand what the characters are doing and talking about.

In the beginning of the book, many different characters came on board, and I really saw no connection between any of them. After a while, I became confused with what was happening in the story. What does Charlie and Gabriella’s story have to do with Dor Jen? What about the two college students, Trent and Shane? It was hard to feel connected to any of the characters.

There really is no action or conflict occurring on the page. I don’t know if this is because I really had no idea what the technical jargon meant, so I was confused, making this story hard to follow. While there appeared to be something sinister happening below the scene with the ascents, I really never felt any internal or external conflict in the characters or surrounding the characters.

Trial Run was really hard for me to keep reading. I did give up around page 200 and flip to the ending. Even the ending wasn’t satisfactory to me. As someone who adores suspense and thriller books, this one definitely did nothing for me. I wouldn’t recommend it anyone. I kept coming up with different books to read while avoiding going back to this book. I picked it up four different times and read about fifty pages, then sat it down before picking it up another book that captured my attention.

While the plot did nothing for me, the writing was good. Locke does have a good handle of how a book should be written with an even amount of dialogue and prose. Each dialogue from each character was different. I had no trouble distinguishing between each individual character.

I received a complimentary copy from Revell Publishing and the opinions stated are all my own.