The Unseen by T.L. Hines

The Unseen by T.L. HinesThe premise of the story, a man (Lucas) who lives vicariously by spying on people from inside walls, duct work, and crawl spaces, making up complicated histories/lives for them in his mind, sounds interesting enough. Add in the wrinkle that he runs into a group of people called the “Creep Club” who seem to share his peculiar interest. Throw in the twist that our “hero” has a mysterious background (was he really an orphan? was he part of some weird scientific study he can’t remember?) and is being pursued by some shadowy government organization, “mad” scientists and even the Chinese and this should be great, right? Wrong.

Some how, some way this manages to be unbelievably boring! The book at times goes for pages and pages with no character interaction whatsoever, only tediously detailed descriptions of what the main character is seeing and thinking. This might be ok if Lucas was charismatic or compelling in some way, but unfortunately he’s just…. boring. He has no home, wandering from building to building setting up his bivouac in perfect position to spy on his chosen subject. He has no family or friends and works at a menial job as a dishwasher. There is absolutely nothing about him that inspired me to “connect” with him, which is rather ironic considering he explains his behavior (to himself) as searching for that “electric connection” that he gets every so often while spying on someone who seems to sense him watching them.

The conclusion was unsatisfying and, ultimately, I found the book to be much ado about nothing once all was said and done. It wasn’t “bad” per se, just not my cup of tea.

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