Review - I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes

I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Paperback, 703 pages

Published August 1st 2013 by Bantam Press

Source: Own Copy

Synopsis:

'Pilgrim is the codename for a man who doesn't exist. The adopted son of a wealthy American family, he once headed up a secret espionage unit for US intelligence. Before he disappeared into anonymous retirement, he wrote the definitive book on forensic criminal investigation.

But that book will come back to haunt him. It will help NYPD detective Ben Bradley track him down. And it will take him to a rundown New York hotel room where the body of a woman is found facedown in a bath of acid, her features erased, her teeth missing, her fingerprints gone. It is a textbook murder - and Pilgrim wrote the book.

What begins as an unusual and challenging investigation will become a terrifying race-against-time to save America from oblivion. Pilgrim will have to make a journey from a public beheading in Mecca to a deserted ruins on the Turkish coast via a Nazi death camp in Alsace and the barren wilderness of the Hindu Kush in search of the faceless man who would commit an appalling act of mass murder in the name of his God.'

My Thoughts:
Ok, so I have to admit that I hadn't even heard of this book until it was chosen as the monthly read for my real life bookclub this month. All I can say is that I am so grateful to the person that chose it because this has to be one of the best thriller books I have read in my life so far.

I Am Pilgrim was an exhausting book to read, but in a good way. It was so extremely detailed that the amount of preparation and research that would have been required by the author just to write this novel seriously makes my head ache.

The scary thing about this book was that the storyline is something that could easily be happening today and we wouldn't have a clue. It felt quite chilling to me to read as the terrorism aspect is so realistic and current in the world we live in today that it's really not that far fetched for something like what is in this book to be happening around us now.

The main character, Scott Murdoch, has worked as a secret government agent for years, and has been required to do some gruesome things in his life, but you still couldn't help but feel a little sorry for him and the isolated life that he led. Underneath his tough, hard work facade you could tell that he was still a decent person in there somewhere which is why he tried to retire and live like a normal person at one point.

The twists and turns and plot developments in this story kept me absolutely riveted and I barely wanted to put the book down. There was a point around halfway that I did start to feel a little overwhelmed by the enormity of the storyline and how long the book was but I then found myself absolutely flying through the last couple of hundred pages or so in record time.

I also found a lot of the cultural references very eye opening and also quite scary and became even more thankful for the conditions I get to live in at home.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and think it was a great start to the New Year.

If you are a fan of a good thriller then this is definitely the book for you.

Links:
Amazon
The Book Depository