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Pines: Wayward Pines: 1 (The Wayward Pines Trilogy)
The first book of the smash-hit Wayward Pines trilogy, from the New York Times bestselling author of Dark Matter, Recursion, and Upgrade
One way in. No way out.
Secret Service agent Ethan Burke arrives in Wayward Pines, Idaho, with a mission: locate two federal agents who went missing in the bucolic town one month earlier. But within minutes of his arrival, Ethan is involved in a violent accident. He comes to in a hospital, with no ID, no cell phone, and no briefcase.
As the days pass, Ethan's investigation turns up more questions than answers: Why can't he get any phone calls through to his wife and son in the outside world? Why doesn't anyone believe he is who he says he is? And what is the purpose of the electrified fences surrounding the town? Are they meant to keep the residents in? Or something else out?
Each step closer to the truth takes Ethan farther from the world he knew, from the man he was, until he must face a horrifying fact-he may never get out of Wayward Pines alive.
The nail-bitingly suspenseful opening installment in Blake Crouch's blockbuster Wayward Pines trilogy, Pines is at once a brilliant mystery tale and the first step into a genre-bending saga of suspense, science fiction, and horror.
One way in. No way out.
Secret Service agent Ethan Burke arrives in Wayward Pines, Idaho, with a mission: locate two federal agents who went missing in the bucolic town one month earlier. But within minutes of his arrival, Ethan is involved in a violent accident. He comes to in a hospital, with no ID, no cell phone, and no briefcase.
As the days pass, Ethan's investigation turns up more questions than answers: Why can't he get any phone calls through to his wife and son in the outside world? Why doesn't anyone believe he is who he says he is? And what is the purpose of the electrified fences surrounding the town? Are they meant to keep the residents in? Or something else out?
Each step closer to the truth takes Ethan farther from the world he knew, from the man he was, until he must face a horrifying fact-he may never get out of Wayward Pines alive.
The nail-bitingly suspenseful opening installment in Blake Crouch's blockbuster Wayward Pines trilogy, Pines is at once a brilliant mystery tale and the first step into a genre-bending saga of suspense, science fiction, and horror.
Readers Top Reviews
JohnReviewer19
Another book I read through to the end when I wanted to give up after a few chapters. Having read. DARK matter which I enjoyed I thought I'd give his trilogy a go. I'm stopping at book 1. I like my sci fi but I have to have sense of... It could happen. From the off it never gripped me and I didn't bond with ANY of the main characters. It then trails off into a ludicrous preachy ending
5t4n5 Dot ComJohn
I started to watch the TV series a couple of years ago, just because Juliette Lewis was in it. And then they had the utter gall to kill her off in the third episode. WTF!!! So i binned watching the TV version and decided to read the books instead. So how was the book? Awesome! I was very surprised to see this listed as ‘horror’ in Amazon. I would definitely put this in dystopian sci-fi, i didn’t notice any horror, just the normal dystopian sci-fi kind of stuff. I’ve previously read Blake’s book, ‘Dark Matter’, which was exceptionally well written and Pines is just as good. Blake does a fantastic job of putting his protagonists into some really mind bending, disturbing situations and putting the reader well and truly into the protagonist’s mind. All in all, a great start to this trilogy and i’m diving straight into book 2, ‘Wayward’, very optimistic for more of Blake’s style of writing — i’m becoming a big fan.
hibbzie.5t4n5 Dot
Having never seen the TV series Wayward Pines I didn't have a clue what it was about or what to expect from the book, but I'm really glad I took a chance and bought this first of the trilogy, in fact I have to admit that I bought parts two and three BEFORE I finished book one. For me, this book more than deserves a five out of five star rating. Ethan, a secret service agent wakes up near a fast flowing river battered and bruised in Wayward Pines, all he can remember is his name, his wife and child, the fact that him and another agent were sent to Wayward Pines to find two missing agents last known to be there, and that he was in a bad car accident in which his partner was killed. As he tries to track down the missing agents he realises that he cannot leave town. If I said anymore I would be giving away spoilers and that's not my thing, so, suffice to say, I think this is one of the best books I have read in quite a while. Highly recommended.
Rob Ashhibbzie.5t
Great book but I think Crouch just tries too hard and ends up over-egging his own pudding. Let me explain. This is the third Blake Crouch book I've read and the previous two, Dark Matter and Recursion, I had some major issues with, and I think I've finally realised what my problem with them is. I think he simply adds too much, he tries too hard. Just because you like sugar in your coffee you don't dump ten spoonfuls of it in there because it'll destroy it, you add just enough to make it just right. Someone needs to confiscate Mr Crouch's spoon! My criticisms come from a place of frustration because I love these books, especially this one. Pines is probably my favourite to date, but there's always a section or two in his books where I end up pulling out my hair, or I would if I had any, and screaming 'Why did you do that!' and Pines is just the same. Which is really unfortunate because this book could have made my all-time favourites list. The beginning of the book is a complete mind-bender, a full-on psychological trip. And I was loving it. Not knowing what the hell is going on, and the tension of having to discover at the same pace as the protagonist is fantastic, and Crouch does it brilliantly in this book. But then things degenerate a little into a bit of a trope, but that's ok, I can live with that, until we get to THAT scene. Where the town's entire population, for some unfathomably ridiculous reason in Halloween dress, go on a murder frenzy. NO NO NO! It doesn't work, it makes no sense and it just doesn't fit at all. Why!? I'm trying to be as vague as possible here in case you haven't read the book. But this just cheapens the writing and utterly destroys all the beautiful work Crouch put in prior to this. Then there's the rock-face climb, tense, dramatic and gripping...until the pack of creepy alien-looking creatures turn up out of the blue. NO NO NO! It's not needed! It's cheap titillation which kills the real tension the main character is going through. And the fact that they are dispatched so easily and quickly is just comical. Ok, after all that please let me apologise, I don't usually go off on one like that, but this book could have been so damn good! I've still given it four stars, even though it really, really, should have been a solid five-star book. And yes, I have the second and third books, Wayward and The Last Town, and I will be reading them. I'm actually intrigued to see how a strong and driven man like Ethan manages to handle working under a morally bankrupt man like Pilcher, and the murder frenzying townsfolk of course...if I must.
Bryan W. AlaspaRo
Sometimes it can be hard to be a writer that flounders around at the lower end of the literary spectrum such as myself. I like to think I create fairly decent thrillers, chillers and tales of mystery and suspense (such as my latest, a hard-boiled detective novel called "Deklan Falls: One Against Many"). I have dreams, like many, of writing nothing but books and novels and not spending days behind a desk in an office. I always feel like I am close to that big breakthrough. Then, of course, along comes someone like Blake Crouch and I have to wonder just what the hell I am doing. I read Blake's novel RUN just about a year or so ago. I downloaded it to my Kindle. I was hooked immediately. I was literally on the edge of my seat for the entire novel and since I finished reading it, I have recommended it to so many people that I am quite sure most Kindle fans must think Blake is paying me to do so (he isn't). It is, quite simply, one of the finest thrillers I have read in years. So, it was with great anticipation that I awaited the release of his new novel PINES. It came out this week and was downloaded to my Kindle Tuesday morning. I just finished it. Dammit...he's done it again. Blake Crouch, I mean. This is a novel that doesn't just hit the ground running, it slams into the ground, making it shake violently, and then pummels the hell out of it from the very first page. It sprints along at a break-neck pace that leaves the reader breathless, always feeling just a little bit behind the story, looking to catch up with each turn of the page or flick of the page button on the Kindle. And when the story finishes, you, dear reader, will be breathless, exhausted, panting as if you had just run a marathon, but wishing there was more. The novel seems to start off as a standard mystery. Secret Service Agent Ethan Burke awakens near a river just outside of the small town of Wayward Pines - a tiny hamlet surrounded by towering cliffs and mountains on all sides. Burke has memories of being in a terrible accident where a Mack truck T-boned his vehicle. He had been sent to Wayward Pines to investigate the disappearance of two other agents. His memory is faulty. He can barely remember his own name and his head hurts. He ends up in the hospital, but something is wrong there. As he begins to try and start his investigation into the missing agents, the seemingly idyllic town turns openly hostile towards him. Paranoia sets in for Burke, then outright fear, and the reader goes right along with him. Crouch explored some of these themes in RUN - where the entire world seems to turn against other members of society. Creepy things begin to happen. Burke is hopelessly outnumbered, but what is going on in this strange town? Why do people seem to remember the dates all wrong? Why can't he make an outgoing pho...
Short Excerpt Teaser
CHAPTER 1
He came to lying on his back with sunlight pouring down into his face and the murmur of running water close by. There was a brilliant ache in his optic nerve, and a steady, painless throbbing at the base of his skull-the distant thunder of an approaching migraine. He rolled onto his side and pushed up into a sitting position, tucking his head between his knees. Sensed the instability of the world long before he opened his eyes, like its axis had been cut loose to teeter. His first deep breath felt like someone driving a steel wedge between the ribs high on his left side, but he groaned through the pain and forced his eyes to open. His left eye must have been badly swollen, because it seemed like he was staring through a slit.
The greenest grass he'd ever seen-a forest of long, soft blades-ran down to the bank. The water was clear and swift as it flowed between the boulders that jutted out of the channel. Across the river, a cliff swept up for a thousand feet. Pines grew in clusters along the ledges, and the air was filled with the smell of them and the sweetness of the moving water.
He was dressed in black pants and a black jacket with an oxford shirt underneath, the white cotton speckled with blood. A black tie hung by the flimsiest knot from his collar.
On his first attempt to get up, his knees buckled and he sat down hard enough to send a vibration of searing pain through his rib cage. His second try succeeded, and he found himself wobbly but standing, the ground a pitching deck beneath his feet. He turned slowly, his feet shuffling and spread wide for balance.
With the river behind him, he stood at the edge of an open field. On the far side, the metal surfaces of swing sets and sliding boards glimmered under an intense, midday sun.
Not another soul around.
Beyond the park, he glimpsed Victorian houses, and farther on, the buildings of a main street. The town was at most a mile across, and it sat in the middle of an amphitheater of stone, enclosed by cliff walls rising several thousand feet on every side and composed of red-banded rock. In the highest, shadowed mountain nooks, pockets of snow lingered, but down here in the valley, it was warm, the sky above a deep and cloudless cobalt.
The man checked the pockets of his slacks, and then of his single-breasted coat.
No wallet. No money clip. No ID. No keys. No phone.
Just a small Swiss Army knife in one of the inner pockets.
***
By the time he'd reached the other side of the park, he was more alert and more confused, and the pulsing in his cervical spine wasn't painless any longer.
He knew six things:
The name of the current president.
What his mother's face looked like, though he couldn't recall her name or even the sound of her voice.
That he could play the piano. And fly a helicopter.
That he was thirty-seven years old.
And that he needed to get to a hospital.
Outside those facts, the world and his place in it wasn't so much hidden as printed in a foreign nomenclature beyond his comprehension. He could sense the truth hovering on the outskirts of consciousness, but it lay just out of reach.
He walked up a quiet residential street, studying every car he passed. Did one of them belong to him?
The houses that faced each other were pristine-freshly painted with perfect little squares of bright grass framed by picket fences and each household name stenciled in white block letters on the side of a black mailbox.
In almost every backyard, he saw a vibrant garden, bursting not only with flowers but vegetables and fruit.
All the colors so pure and vivid.
Midway through the second block, he winced. The exertion of walking had drawn a deep breath out of him, the pain in his left side stopping him in his tracks. Removing his jacket, he pulled his oxford out of his waistline, unbuttoned the shirt, and opened it. Looked even worse than it felt-all down his left side stretched a dark purple bruise, bull's-eyed with a swath of jaundiced yellow.
Something had hit him. Hard.
He ran his hand lightly over the surface of his skull. The headache was there, becoming more pronounced by the minute, but he didn't feel any signs of severe trauma beyond tenderness on the left side.
He buttoned his shirt back, tucked it into his pants, and continued up the street.
The blaring conclusion was that he'd been involved in some sort of accident.
Maybe a car. Maybe a fall. Maybe he'd been attacked-that could explain why he carried no wallet.
He should go to the police first thing.
Unless . . .
What if he'd done something wrong? Committed a crime?
Was that pos...
He came to lying on his back with sunlight pouring down into his face and the murmur of running water close by. There was a brilliant ache in his optic nerve, and a steady, painless throbbing at the base of his skull-the distant thunder of an approaching migraine. He rolled onto his side and pushed up into a sitting position, tucking his head between his knees. Sensed the instability of the world long before he opened his eyes, like its axis had been cut loose to teeter. His first deep breath felt like someone driving a steel wedge between the ribs high on his left side, but he groaned through the pain and forced his eyes to open. His left eye must have been badly swollen, because it seemed like he was staring through a slit.
The greenest grass he'd ever seen-a forest of long, soft blades-ran down to the bank. The water was clear and swift as it flowed between the boulders that jutted out of the channel. Across the river, a cliff swept up for a thousand feet. Pines grew in clusters along the ledges, and the air was filled with the smell of them and the sweetness of the moving water.
He was dressed in black pants and a black jacket with an oxford shirt underneath, the white cotton speckled with blood. A black tie hung by the flimsiest knot from his collar.
On his first attempt to get up, his knees buckled and he sat down hard enough to send a vibration of searing pain through his rib cage. His second try succeeded, and he found himself wobbly but standing, the ground a pitching deck beneath his feet. He turned slowly, his feet shuffling and spread wide for balance.
With the river behind him, he stood at the edge of an open field. On the far side, the metal surfaces of swing sets and sliding boards glimmered under an intense, midday sun.
Not another soul around.
Beyond the park, he glimpsed Victorian houses, and farther on, the buildings of a main street. The town was at most a mile across, and it sat in the middle of an amphitheater of stone, enclosed by cliff walls rising several thousand feet on every side and composed of red-banded rock. In the highest, shadowed mountain nooks, pockets of snow lingered, but down here in the valley, it was warm, the sky above a deep and cloudless cobalt.
The man checked the pockets of his slacks, and then of his single-breasted coat.
No wallet. No money clip. No ID. No keys. No phone.
Just a small Swiss Army knife in one of the inner pockets.
***
By the time he'd reached the other side of the park, he was more alert and more confused, and the pulsing in his cervical spine wasn't painless any longer.
He knew six things:
The name of the current president.
What his mother's face looked like, though he couldn't recall her name or even the sound of her voice.
That he could play the piano. And fly a helicopter.
That he was thirty-seven years old.
And that he needed to get to a hospital.
Outside those facts, the world and his place in it wasn't so much hidden as printed in a foreign nomenclature beyond his comprehension. He could sense the truth hovering on the outskirts of consciousness, but it lay just out of reach.
He walked up a quiet residential street, studying every car he passed. Did one of them belong to him?
The houses that faced each other were pristine-freshly painted with perfect little squares of bright grass framed by picket fences and each household name stenciled in white block letters on the side of a black mailbox.
In almost every backyard, he saw a vibrant garden, bursting not only with flowers but vegetables and fruit.
All the colors so pure and vivid.
Midway through the second block, he winced. The exertion of walking had drawn a deep breath out of him, the pain in his left side stopping him in his tracks. Removing his jacket, he pulled his oxford out of his waistline, unbuttoned the shirt, and opened it. Looked even worse than it felt-all down his left side stretched a dark purple bruise, bull's-eyed with a swath of jaundiced yellow.
Something had hit him. Hard.
He ran his hand lightly over the surface of his skull. The headache was there, becoming more pronounced by the minute, but he didn't feel any signs of severe trauma beyond tenderness on the left side.
He buttoned his shirt back, tucked it into his pants, and continued up the street.
The blaring conclusion was that he'd been involved in some sort of accident.
Maybe a car. Maybe a fall. Maybe he'd been attacked-that could explain why he carried no wallet.
He should go to the police first thing.
Unless . . .
What if he'd done something wrong? Committed a crime?
Was that pos...
