The Unseen, T.L. Hines

I read this book pretty quickly because I was snowed in when it came in the mail. I enjoyed it. It was an interesting plot, well-written, and suspenseful. The main character is a weirdo, even if he’s important to the plot. I had hoped Lucas was a clone, but he wasn’t. I did get a feeling of satisfaction from the creative explanation for his identity. A repetitious “Humpty Dumpty” quote gets annoying, and then it resolves nicely. It seems the more you observe, the less you participate. This story is an extreme example of a man trying to observe the world without being involved in it. Instead his face ends up in the paper, and the law and 20 killers are looking for him. I liked the line, “People look, but they don’t see. People hear, but they don’t feel.” There are a lot of thought-provoking ideas, although a few are more creepy than anything. I’m not asking for preachy, but I was anticipating more of a Christian message than this book offered. I found myself making comparisons with Dekker. (Couldn't help it.) Hines, a new author to me, handles violence more tastefully than Dekker. I can handle suspenseful scenes, but Dekker's last two books I read triggered disgust. Call me a wuss, but I don't consider nausea entertaining. The ending of The Unseen gets pretty violent, but without much blood or grisly details. The very very ending is a modern version of riding off into the sunset – driving out of state with a brand new set of identification. Comparisons aside, this author is no copycat. He did his research and wrote a bizarre, entertaining novel about a subculture I’d never heard of, and one that hopefully doesn’t really exist.