She Treads Softly: The Ridge

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

The Ridge

The Ridge by John Rector

Thomas & Mercer: 4/25/17
eBook review copy; 284 pages
ISBN-13: 9781503943933

The Ridge by John Rector is a recommended sort of sci fi, sort of domestic thriller, with a wee-little zombie undertone.

Megan and Tyler Stokes have moved from Chicago to Willow Ridge. Willow Ridge is middle-class employee housing for the Institute, a research center where Tyler now works, and is hundreds of miles from civilization. It's a planned community with four allowed house colors, open manicured lawns, and a Stepford-like vibe in the air. What Megan is really angry about is the neighbor across the street, Rachel Addison. Rachel has been flirting with Tyler, propositioning him, and Megan is not about to let that infraction stand. When she goes across the street to confront Rachel, Megan ends up throwing a tantrum and Rachel ends up dead - but maybe not. When Megan tells Tyler about the accident, he goes over to investigate and Rachel is there, answering the door.

Is Megan losing her mind? It seems like she must be because now she's noticing off behavior in others and it looks like Rachel might be entering the territory of the walking dead - that is until the clean-up crew comes late one night. It seems that neighbor David Mercer might have more information that he's kept hidden, but he is reluctant to openly talk about anything because he knows they are all being watched. What is really going on in Willow Ridge and at the Institute?

While The Ridge is basically well written and has a simple easy to follow narrative, it does suffer from a lack of real suspense and tension being created to make Megan's situation seem more dire and terrifying. You really end up feeling, at first, that she's losing her mind and the story is going to be her sinking into madness - unless the zombie-like Rachel was real or if Mercer's hidden information is legitimate. Megan also seems a little too excitable and eager to overshare her suspicions with people. Discretion doesn't seem to be a trait she exhibits. The creepiness factor is occasionally there, though, which helps some. The ending is interesting.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Thomas & Mercer.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.