Review: "The Dying Game" by Asa Avdic
Fast paced action, engaging and full of twists - a book that you won't want to put down!
SYNOPSIS
On the remote island of Isola, seven people have been selected to compete in a 48-hour test for a top secret intelligence position.
One of them is Anna Francis, a workaholic with a nine-year-old daughter she rarely sees, and a secret that haunts her.
Her assignment is to stage her own death and then observe, from her hiding place inside the walls of the house, how the other candidates react to the news that a murderer is among them.
Who will take control?
Who will crack under pressure?
But as soon as Anna steps on to the island, she realizes something isn't quite right. And then a storm rolls in, the power goes out, and the real game begins ...
OVERVIEW
I enjoyed reading this book. Avdic weaves the story from several characters perspectives which builds an interesting story and expands the readers ideas of the different characters and their roles in events.
Although the story is engaging, the setting of the book is not well explained.
With the exception of a brief 'wiki' page at the start of the book - which details Sweden as a 'protectorate' of the 'Union of Friendship', governed by the all-seeing 'Party', there is not much information about the world in which this story is set.
Throughout the book we get small hints at this world. It appears that the Berlin Wall never collapsed, a second Cold War broke out in the early 2000's, the Swedish protectorate is closed off from the outside world and the Party tightly controls access to Western media and Western goods.
With easy parallels drawn between Avdic's world and the Soviet world - it would have been nice to see more explanation of the world in which Anna lives - and to have found out a little more about Nour's relationship with the Party and what went on in Kyzyl Kum.
