January 17, 2014 / Leslie

Review: Game by Anders de la Motte

Game
by Anders de la Motte

Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Publish Date: December 3, 2013 (Orig Aug. 2010)
Format: Paperback | 400 pages
Rating: 4 of 5

Publisher’s Synopsis:

Aimless young Henrik “HP” Petterson finds a cellphone on a Stockholm train that invites him to play a game: in no time, he’s embarking on daring, high-stakes missions that turn his ordinary life extraordinary. HP loves the thrill, and the rewards, but is there a sinister side to the seemingly innocent contest?

Meanwhile, ambitious Detective Rebecca Normén is moving up the career ladder in the Swedish Secret Service but is troubled by the handwritten notes she keeps finding in her locker. Whoever writes them knows way too much about her past. HP’s and Rebecca’s worlds inevitably collide. But if reality is just a game, then what is real?

My Thoughts:

If I find a shiny new phone on a train, I’m heading for the lost and found – but that’s not what Henrik “HP” Petterson would do. Someone meant for HP to find that phone and they knew he would pick it up and keep it; they knew he would play “The Game”.

At first “The Game” directs HP to pull a few pranks and cause some mischief and in return awards him online status and nominal cash payments. HP can certainly use the money having no other income, and he loves the online attention and comments he gets from video posted of his game missions. But soon these tasks begin to escalate into dangerous assignments that can cause real harm to HP and to others.

HP was not a very likable character, nor was he someone I could feel much sympathy for, and yet his antics were compelling enough to keep my interest. As awful as he was in the beginning, his character does show improvement by the end of the book. Rebecca, a young police detective, is responsible and likable, the opposite of HP, but a troubled woman guarding a secret.

The novel shifts perspective between HP and Rebecca, often multiple times within a chapters. At first I wasn’t always clear who was speaking, but once I became accustomed to the style and the relationship between HP and Rebecca was revealed the book flowed much more smoothly. While these are not well-developed characters, the author peels back just enough layers to give us the information we need to understand their motivations. The main focus is on the action and “The Game”.

This was an interesting premise and something that could actually happen – or maybe somewhere it already has. The concept is original, fast-paced and fun. I enjoyed the humor and cultural references scattered throughout. One that made me laugh was when a small airplane chases HP across a field and tries to mow him down and he begins to yell that he’s “Cary Grant stuck in a Hitchcock movie”. (Ok, it was funnier in context.)

The final third of the book accelerates keeping the reader on the edge of their seat for a mostly unexpected ending. I say mostly because I did see one of the twists plot coming, but that in no way diminished my enjoyment. In the end, enough of the major plot points were wrapped up to make this work as a stand alone novel but there are also many questions left open for the second novel in the trilogy. The game isn’t over.

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Source: Review copy provided by Atria Books.
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