Review: A Thriller in the Classic Mold
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 2, 2013
After eight months of recovery from a fall which killed his lover and nearly took his own life, Englishman Paul returns to Iceland to pick up the pieces of his academic career, and try to recover the memories of the year leading up to the accident. Although he lived and worked there for a year, Paul can’t remember his colleagues, the places he visited or even, most worrying of all, his lover Sven. He’s hoping that by returning to his work at a university, something will jog his memory.As Paul reacquaints himself with his workmates and some of the people he might have known before, he gets glimpses of the past, but the more he learns, the more confused he gets about the nature of his relationship with his lover Sven, as well as other people he may have known before the accident. And then there’s Alex, a visiting ‘student’ from America who isn’t what he seems.“Fall Hard” is something of a classic thriller, with a plot that will keep you on edge, wondering what Paul will discover about himself and his past next. It moves along quite well, with a good pace, and yet manages to squeeze in a lot of Icelandic scenery along the way. The story paints quite a vivid picture of the countryside, enough that you might want to consider a holiday there.Paul is surrounded by a rich set of characters, all well drawn so that you can easily imagine each one of them. Thrillers can often over-play the melodrama, sometimes creating tension more by telling you it’s there rather than setting the scene and letting it happen. It can be a fine line, but this author seems to get it right.However, all that said, I found that the story didn’t engage me as emotionally as I would have liked. That’s a highly subjective thing, of course, but it’s why I didn’t give the book five stars.