{"id":9753,"date":"2023-05-22T16:49:16","date_gmt":"2023-05-22T20:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=9753"},"modified":"2023-05-22T16:49:16","modified_gmt":"2023-05-22T20:49:16","slug":"book-review-live-wire-by-kyle-toucher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-live-wire-by-kyle-toucher\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Live Wire by Kyle Toucher"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cover<\/a><\/p>\n

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Live Wire<\/span><\/i> by Kyle Toucher<\/span><\/p>\n

Crystal Lake Publishing, 2023<\/span><\/p>\n

ISBN-13: 9781957133324<\/span><\/p>\n

Available: Paperback, ebook<\/span><\/p>\n

Buy:\u00a0\u00a0Bookshop.org<\/a> |\u00a0Amazon.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While <\/span>Live Wire<\/span><\/i> is the book title, it\u2019s also an apt description of the writing: it crackles and snaps with electricity.\u00a0 For a horror\/thriller, this is a good one to start the summer with.\u00a0 It’s also one of the nuttier ideas to come down the pike.\u00a0 Transmission line towers that uproot themselves from the desert and start stomping around, wreaking havoc?\u00a0 That\u2019s one plot that certainly hasn\u2019t been done before!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The book runs two threads concurrently.\u00a0 In the first, former wannabe rock star Pale Brody, his young son, and a long-distance trucker named Ken Lightfeather are hunkered down at a \u2018”last chance” desert gas station, riding out the worst electrical storm ever seen.\u00a0 Also with them is the aging station owner, Otis Thompson.\u00a0 The towers pull loose at the height of the storm, and the four of them are faced with a situation that is certainly not covered in the US Army’s <\/span>Field Survival Manual.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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The other thread covers the shadowy science and engineering firm whose experiments enabled the electrical pylons to go walkabout.\u00a0 Nikki and Randy are two scientists who leave the firm in the middle of an experiment gone wrong, when it unleashes bloody carnage on the whole group.\u00a0 The scientists eventually cross paths with the store group, and they band together to survive the towers from hell.\u00a0 And hell (or something like it) just may be where the towers get their powers from, for they have abilities beyond just walking around and destroying things.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Live Wire <\/em>is an extremely engrossing book that will have readers zipping through pages, mainly due to the author\u2019s excellent writing and sense of pace.\u00a0 It\u2019s that classic “tight but loose” style of writing: it drives the narrative and gets the story across, but doesn\u2019t take itself too seriously.\u00a0 There are a lot of hilarious asides and analogies, both from the characters and the narrator, giving the story an easy, flowing feeling that makes the pages move quickly.\u00a0 The humor really shows up in the interrogation transcripts that are spaced throughout the book, as Nikki proves hilarious with her sarcastic way of belittling the investigators questioning her.\u00a0 This book, at heart, is unquestionably a thrill ride, but the humor and wit of the characters help give the story a big boost.\u00a0 \u00a0Some readers might be a little bothered by the lack of fully detailed explanation for why things happen, but there\u2019s enough there to keep most readers happy.\u00a0 Some is left to the imagination, and the story is better off for it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bottom line: for a thriller with a bit\u00a0of a horror bent to it, this one covers all the bases.\u00a0 Recommended.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Live Wire by Kyle Toucher Crystal Lake Publishing, 2023 ISBN-13: 9781957133324 Available: Paperback, ebook Buy:\u00a0\u00a0Bookshop.org |\u00a0Amazon.com\u00a0   While Live Wire is the book title, it\u2019s also an apt description of the writing: it crackles and snaps with electricity.\u00a0 For a horror\/thriller, this is a good one to start the summer with.\u00a0 It’s also one<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[645,749,5392,5394,5393,226,5369],"class_list":["post-9753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-horror-book-reviews","tag-horror-books","tag-horror-thrillers","tag-kyle-toucher","tag-live-wire","tag-science-fiction","tag-thriller-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9753"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9761,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9753\/revisions\/9761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}