Bait by J. Kent Messum
My rating: 4/5 cats
the best book pitting sharks against junkies of 2013!
or ever.
when i first heard about this book, i was in the middle of making this weekly bn mystery email thing that i do for work, and i immediately knew i had to feature this title and i also knew i would have to read it, because – come on! so i made a whole NOOK channel around this book called “the killing games” (while, naturally, this was running through my head) and if you can think of any other books that are like this; either things like battle royale where there is an organized fight-to-the-death scenario, or something smaller-scale, where someone kills using very involved and controlled game-like set-ups (like the movie saw), give me a holler, i would both like to expand that channel and read some of them myself.
but bait.
i read this in a day. this is a book that is simple pure adrenaline fun, not a stick-to-your-ribs kind of book. but it has a hell of a premise, and this puppy zooms.
six people wake up on a deserted beach of a remote island in the florida keys with no knowledge of how they got there. they have never met before, and despite their different races, ages, genders, and sexual lifestyles, they all have one thing in common: they are all serious heroin addicts who have demonstrated that they will do anything for a fix.
and here’s their chance to extend the boundaries of “anything.”
because also on that beach is a box with some food and water, and a letter instructing them that the only way off the island is to somehow get to a the next island, where another box will be waiting for them, with more food and water, and also – a lot of heroin. and also that their progress will be monitored.
they see a boat floating in the water with men on deck watching them, and despite their starting to feel the torments of withdrawal, they have no choice but to try to make the swim.
but the people on the boat aren’t going to make it easy for them; this is not the first time they have played this game, and they have a bunch of sharks at the ready, with a taste for human blood.
oh, this is a most dangerous game, indeed!
the structure of the book is a chapter of beach-story leading into a chapter from the pre-beach backstory of one of the six junkies or their kidnappers. each chapter ends with a sentence that mirrors the first sentence of the subsequent chapter in a fun-gimmicky blurred-boundaries way, so we do get character development, and readerly sympathies, but it is best not to get too attached. this is very much a “six junkies enter, one junkie leaves” scenario.
gentlemen, place your bets.
