Wayward (The Wayward Pines Trilogy 2)
In Pines (2012), Crouch introduced Wayward Pines, a town that fictional futurist David Pilcher created to preserve humankind, in danger of extinction in the face of devolved human “Abnormals” overrunning the planet. In 2013, Pilcher kidnapped the town’s residents and placed them in suspension pods, releasing them 1,800 years later. Behind a picket-fenced facade, Wayward Pines is surrounded by an electrified fence, and Pilcher controls townies with microchips and zero-tolerance regulations. Sheriff Ethan Burke is attempting to protect the townies from horrors on both sides of the fence by cooperating with Pilcher, but in the course of investigating a murder—the victim turns out to be Pilcher’s daughter—Burke’s veneer of cooperation cracks, and he struggles to execute a plan that will grant townies liberty without sacrificing their safety. Crouch successfully embeds political philosophy and a spot-on murder investigation into this dystopian blend of fantasy and thriller. While the novel lacks some of Pines’ stomach-churning suspense, its cliff-hanger ending promises truckloads of terrifying moments to come. --Christine Tran