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michaelpatrickhicks 's review for:
The Broken Room
by Peter Clines
As I was reading The Broken Room, I saw somewhere an elevator pitch describing this book as Stranger Things meets Jack Reacher, and it's certainly an apt comparison. I'd add, too, that it has a vintage, pre-dog worshipping Dean Koontz feel to it, a dash of Blake Crouch, and, in some ways, just a dab of Brian Keene's The Rising for good measure.
Hector is a familiar archetype - a former soldier who's lost those closest to him to tragedy and has spent the last two years slowly drinking himself to oblivion. He's sucking down booze when a girl, Natalie, finds him in a bar and tells him he's going to help her. She reminds him that he owes his friend Tim big-time, but Tim is dead and she's calling in that marker because his ghost told her to. She's also an escaped lab rat from a shady organization known only as The Project, and hot on her heels are a pair of suits with phony badges looking to bring her back.
Peter Clines doesn't waste any time throwing us into the thick of it all, and readers would do well to buckle up prior to cracking this one open, and maybe even cracking open a cold one for added enjoyment! This fast-paced narrative is routinely peppered with frenetic action scenes, and The Broken Room is basically one long, extended chase scene with Hector and Natalie on the run and pursued by mercenaries, hitmen, and cops. The most potent danger just might be Natalie herself, though, especially once the sci-fi horror elements rear their gross, ugly heads and the nature of The Project, and what they've done to her, is slowly and carefully revealed.
While The Broken Room is a crackling cross-genre thriller, what I found even more intriguing was the subtext surrounding these characters and their circumstances. Following the election of Donald Trump, the US-Mexico border crisis, and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, hope that the children will save us has become a rather common refrain in response to the actions and behaviors of the stupid and ignorant who gave rise to the Trump presidency, antivaxxers, and mask scofflaws. The roots of The Broken Room are inescapably twisted around Trump's cruel border policies, and the shadow cast by that repugnant creature looms large over this narrative like the dark stain it is, with the demand that migrant children be torn apart from their families, and the repugnant, disgusting treatment the imprisoned were subjected to.
Natalie is one such hostage, taken from her family and lost within the system, given to The Project to be tortured and experimented upon, along with a number of other migrant children. Her only hope for survival is Hector, a hardened Mexican-American, allowing Clines to spare us from the tired white savior trope that's unfortunately still prevalent in so many other works. Along the way, we're also given an exploration of found family as Hector and Natalie's bond deepens and they're forced to fight their way through corrupt cops, a gas station Karen, and Blackwater-esque contract killers. Ahhh, good, old America! All in all, it's pretty compelling stuff and gives a welcome bit of depth to what would otherwise be little more than a standard run-and-gun story in less capable hands.
As for the titular broken room? It's creepy, man. Creepy AF.
Hector is a familiar archetype - a former soldier who's lost those closest to him to tragedy and has spent the last two years slowly drinking himself to oblivion. He's sucking down booze when a girl, Natalie, finds him in a bar and tells him he's going to help her. She reminds him that he owes his friend Tim big-time, but Tim is dead and she's calling in that marker because his ghost told her to. She's also an escaped lab rat from a shady organization known only as The Project, and hot on her heels are a pair of suits with phony badges looking to bring her back.
Peter Clines doesn't waste any time throwing us into the thick of it all, and readers would do well to buckle up prior to cracking this one open, and maybe even cracking open a cold one for added enjoyment! This fast-paced narrative is routinely peppered with frenetic action scenes, and The Broken Room is basically one long, extended chase scene with Hector and Natalie on the run and pursued by mercenaries, hitmen, and cops. The most potent danger just might be Natalie herself, though, especially once the sci-fi horror elements rear their gross, ugly heads and the nature of The Project, and what they've done to her, is slowly and carefully revealed.
While The Broken Room is a crackling cross-genre thriller, what I found even more intriguing was the subtext surrounding these characters and their circumstances. Following the election of Donald Trump, the US-Mexico border crisis, and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, hope that the children will save us has become a rather common refrain in response to the actions and behaviors of the stupid and ignorant who gave rise to the Trump presidency, antivaxxers, and mask scofflaws. The roots of The Broken Room are inescapably twisted around Trump's cruel border policies, and the shadow cast by that repugnant creature looms large over this narrative like the dark stain it is, with the demand that migrant children be torn apart from their families, and the repugnant, disgusting treatment the imprisoned were subjected to.
Natalie is one such hostage, taken from her family and lost within the system, given to The Project to be tortured and experimented upon, along with a number of other migrant children. Her only hope for survival is Hector, a hardened Mexican-American, allowing Clines to spare us from the tired white savior trope that's unfortunately still prevalent in so many other works. Along the way, we're also given an exploration of found family as Hector and Natalie's bond deepens and they're forced to fight their way through corrupt cops, a gas station Karen, and Blackwater-esque contract killers. Ahhh, good, old America! All in all, it's pretty compelling stuff and gives a welcome bit of depth to what would otherwise be little more than a standard run-and-gun story in less capable hands.
As for the titular broken room? It's creepy, man. Creepy AF.