Rating: WARTY!
Note to authors - Dark Matter is a title which is way-the-hell over-used. You might want to find something new and original for your own novel rather than jump on this over-laden band wagon.
I became interested in reading something by Blake Crouch after watching the TV show, Wayward Pines. When I saw this one pop up on Net Galley I jumped at the chance of an advance review copy because it gave me just that opportunity. Not that this is connected with Wayward Pines, but it was a golden chance to read something by this author. The problem was that this novel started out at such an achingly slow pace that I simply could not get into it. I became bored waiting for something interesting and new to happen. This story needed to get up and running fast, but it stumbled and dragged, weighed down by too much exposition.
A guy leaves his wife and son one evening to stop briefly at a bar where a friend of his is celebrating, and despite the fact that the guy takes a different route home from his usual one, he is nevertheless stalked and kidnapped by a man with a gun. When he wakes up later, several months of his life are missing. Sounds interesting, right? It wasn't. Maybe it had the opportunity to be interesting, but it moved at such a glacial pace that I ceased caring what had happened to this guy and gave up on finding out. Every time I thought something was going to break loose, out came more exposition, and meandering, and self-examination, and on and on. Really, I cannot honestly recommend this novel.
