I think I’ll just start my review by saying that T. L. Hines’s The Unseen is one of the most impressive thrillers I’ve read in some time—not just among Christian books, but among thrillers in general. I liked Hines’ first novel, Waking Lazarus, quite a lot. I was less impressed with The Dead Whisper On, his second. But this book—in my opinion—knocks it out of the park. It works on many levels, not only as a straight thriller, but as a cultural metaphor.
Lucas, the hero, is not strictly a part of the normal world. He makes a little money doing temporary, menial jobs, but he doesn’t need much money, because he’s essentially homeless. He moves from place to place in Washington, DC—abandoned buildings, service tunnels, even the sewer. He lives to watch other people, from hiding places he sets up behind walls and ceilings, “between the seams of society.” He’s not a voyeur in the ordinary sense. He doesn’t spy on women in dressing rooms, for instance. He watches people in public places, or at work. He imagines what their lives are like. It’s the only thing that makes him feel good, that calms the incessant buzzing he hears in his brain.
But one day he meets another man who’s a watcher like him. Through that man he learns of a whole organization of “creepers,” people who install cameras and make secret videos of people in their homes. They film acts of domestic violence and murder plots, but they refuse to do anything about them.
Lucas does something about them. Only the results aren’t what he expects, and the more he learns the stranger the mysteries grow, until he finds himself pursuing—and fleeing from—spies and counterspies and mysterious scientists who may hold the secret to his own forgotten past.
Aside from the originality of the concept, I liked the way Hines progressively amped up the tension (some of the action is kind of hackneyed, but it’s effective) and managed to make sympathetic a character who could have been pretty repellant. And Lucas’s watching obsession obviously mirrors various pathologies in modern society, from which (I suspect) few of us are entirely free. (Porn, anyone? Reality TV?) I suppose most readers won’t identify with Lucas as strongly as I did, but I think most will identify to some degree or another.
Highly recommended for older teens and adults. Well done.
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