My Five Word TL:DR Review : Post apocalyptic with a twist

Red River Seven is a fast paced, well written story that brings together seven complete strangers on a small boat, none of them know who they are or why they’re here and each seems to possess individual talents that they have clearly been chosen for.  But why?

The river in question is the Thames, the ‘Red’ in question seems to relate to the swirling-red-tinged mist that constantly surrounds the small boat giving the space a small claustrophobic feeling and the seven are of course the members on board.  I can’t really say too much more without giving away spoilers other than this is a mystery set in what should be a familiar setting but has been changed by circumstances beyond our knowledge.  Perhaps post apocalyptic, certainly populated with some strange and dangerous new inhabitants.  That’s all I can really say.  The real mystery is how the occupants came to be there and what their task will be.  Eventually, a computerised voice at the other end of a phone, will give them dispassionate directions that they are expected to follow to the letter.  And so the story begins.

My overall thoughts.

This is certainly a fast paced novel and one that I was keen to press on with to find out what was going on.  Of course, a little way into the read you begin to get a feel for the place and what’s happening around our characters and whilst I wouldn’t exactly call this particularly unique the eventual objective does manage to be the opposite of what I expected.

The characters are all suffering from what can only be described as selective amnesia.  They each seem to have an area of expertise that will be important to the mission.  The character that we predominantly follow is Huxley, believed to be a detective by the other members.  In fact all the characters are named for authors, Plath, Rhys, Pynchon, Golding, Dickinson and Conrad and as with Huxley they all have there own capabilities such as weapons expert, knowledge of medical procedures, information about history, etc.   I’m not overly fond of the use of ‘amnesia’ to be honest but I think it works well here although clearly it has the disadvantage of not really allowing you to get to know your characters or form real attachments.  That said, you immediately have the strong sense that you can trust Huxley and that he’s a straightforward, no nonsense sort of guy and in spite of the limitations Ryan manages to tease out individual characteristics making some characters a lot less likeable than others.

The story is something of an onion with layers being removed one by one to allow the characters and the readers to find out what’s really going on at the same time.  There’s plenty of drama and action, small on-board scuffles as our cast stand up to each other and much larger skirmishes as they come to grips with what’s out there.

In terms of criticisms.  Well, more an observation really.  I wouldn’t particularly say there’s anything astonishingly new here in fact I’d say the author really plays into the idea of ‘tropes’ by allowing us initially to only define the characters by their own abilities and place in the mission, in fact I kind of like this really, it feels a little tongue in cheek almost.  There were a couple of elements that I am puzzled about but I can’t really discuss them here – one of them it’s possible I missed something but the other is more a question relating to the members chosen for the mission.

I don’t want to go any further with this review as it would be very easy to spoil the story for others so I’ll conclude by saying this was a fast paced, easy to read, well written mystery with an ending that was not what I expected.  Entertaining, easy to imagine and with a quality that would easily adapt to the big screen.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks.  The above is my own opinion.

My rating 3.5 of 5 stars (rounded to 4)