Review: The Intruders

From the creator of The Straw Men trilogy comes this remarkable thriller which mixes crime-fiction with a dose of horror, and conspiracy theories resulting in a sense of dread that reaches a crescendo with a very perplexing and terrifying climax. What I love about Marshall’s work is his ‘off-kilter’ view of life and death, which in The Intruders is at its most menacing.

The Intruders starts with an apparently motiveless murder of a mother and teenage son, by a man who shows no emotion or humanity. This man we learn is called Shepard and seems controlled by others, not unlike the killers that populated The Straw Men, but with some major differences which are only revealed at the stunning climax.

Enter Jack Whalen an ex-LAPD cop turned writer who escaped the madness of Los Angeles for a small town called Birch Crossing on the northern Pacific Rim. His life with wife Amy, a high-flying corporate executive could not be better, until an old high-school friend called Gary Fisher calls him and wants to share a secret. Then things start to get really surreal. Amy goes missing in Seattle, leaving Whalen to suspect she’s having an affair, but when she returns, things have changed and so has Amy. Whalen’s world starts to crumble. Add to the mix a missing child called Madison [who exhibits psychopathic tendencies] and is drawn to the murderer called Shepard, more deaths; and a sinister legal firm who operate for multi-million dollar corporate clients out of [and get this] a rotting tenement building in the slum district of Seattle, and you have a tale from which dread just seeps off the page and onto your fingers as you turn the pages. Whalen turns to Fisher to help unravel himself from the nightmare he finds encircling him.

At its dark heart, The Intruders is a horrific conspiracy thriller. It mixes Michael Marshall’s parallax-ed view of life, mingling the noir, with a sense of menace that just grabs you, filling your mind with sheer dread. There is an element of Horror and perhaps a little Science-Fiction hidden in the tale that makes you question what you consider is the relationship between your life, and your death – and what existence may actually mean.

I really cannot say any more lest I spoil the big surprise that sits at the end of this novel, like a demon clutching a handgun pointing directly into your face. But deep in the narrative is a feeling for humanity, and what loss can mean to those who have most to risk – their loved ones. I just loved this book.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Ali Karim - RAM

Book Review: The Intruders