Detour
A Novel
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2.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A space shuttle flight crew discovers that the Earth they’ve returned to is not the home they left behind in the first book of this emotional, mind-bending thriller series from the creator of the hit Netflix show Manifest and the bestselling author of The Warehouse.
“If The Martian and The Twilight Zone had a baby, it would be Detour—a thriller that messes with your head as you scramble to piece together what’s really going on.”—Steve Netter, Best Thriller Books
Ryan Crane wasn’t looking for trouble—just a cup of coffee. But when this cop spots a gunman emerging from an unmarked van, he leaps into action and unknowingly saves John Ward, a billionaire with presidential aspirations, from an assassination attempt.
As thanks for Ryan’s quick thinking, Ward offers him the chance of a lifetime: to join a group of lucky civilians chosen to accompany three veteran astronauts on the first manned mission to Saturn’s moon Titan.
A devoted family man, Ryan is reluctant to leave on this two-year expedition, yet with the encouragement of his loving wife—and an exorbitant paycheck guaranteeing lifetime care for their disabled son—he crews up and ventures into a new frontier.
But as the ship is circling Titan, it is rocked by an unexplained series of explosions. The crew works together to get back on course, and they return to Earth as heroes.
When the fanfare dies down, Ryan and his fellow astronauts notice that things are different. Some changes are good, such as lavish upgrades to their homes, but others are more disconcerting. Before the group can connect, mysterious figures start tailing them, and their communications are scrambled.
Separated and suspicious, the crew must uncover the truth and decide how far they’re willing to go to return to their normal lives. Just when their space adventure seemingly ends, it shockingly begins.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the outset of this messy sci-fi thriller from debut author Rake, creator of the Netflix series Manifest, and Hart (Dark Space), D.C. cop Ryan Crane saves the life of John Ward, the billionaire behind an upcoming two-year mission to Saturn's moon Titan and a third-party U.S. presidential candidate. Ward plunks $15 million into Crane's bank account to sign him on to the mission, which is under attack from the press and NASA. The mismatched six-person crew, a New Jersey graffiti artist among them, face perils in space—including the discovery that someone has tampered with their spacecraft's operating system—but even greater danger when they make an early return to Earth, only to find everything slightly different. As they piece together what's changed and why, and work to get back to their own timeline, they're hindered by Ward's sinister assistant, who hires a goon squad to sequester them. It's a strong premise, but the plot gets bogged down by too many characters and their trope-heavy backstories. As a result, readers will struggle to sort through the tangled web of conspiracy surrounding Ward, the Dark Web, and a renegade NASA scientist on the way to an underbaked climax. This squanders its potential.
