13th Hour: Chaos - Richard Doetsch

Thriller/Sci-Fi

Rating: 7.5/10

When you crack open the cover of this book and see that Chapter 12 is ready to start you off, it is not a misprint!  This uniquely structured story is a novel told in reverse.

Nick arrives at 5pm to the swanky party his wife is hosting for a presidential candidate wannabee they went to school with and who Nick can barely tolerate.  Within two hours everyone, including Nick, will be dead.  Wiped out by an explosion.  Or were they?

Nick jolts awake a bit worse for wear, standing in the very place he stood at 5pm, but now its 4pm.  Trying to clear the fog of his confusion, he remembers his dying friend handing him a bag and saying, “listen carefully, don’t let that bag out of your sight.  He’s coming for you; he’s coming for your family.”

Nick soon discovers that he in possession of a pocket watch that allows him to go back in time for small increments, but only for a twelve-hour period.  One step forward, two steps back. Nick can alter this horrific outcome, but the obstacles in his way are ceaseless and powerful, and someone else has their own watch. 

This adrenaline rush of a story asks the reader to imagine that the world as you knew it fell off its axis.  You see the people you loved die, in grisly ways, your home disappears, your government collapses…

And what if you could undo it all? What if you could change the future? What consequences could you tolerate?

I kept expecting to find spots in the story that were misaligned due to the reverse telling, but this author ensures everything fits together like clockwork.

My thanks to NetGalley, Permuted Press and the author for the advanced reader’s copy.

Book Pairing(s): Recursion by Blake Crouch, 11/22/63 by Stephen King, The Midnight Library by Matt Haig