Adam Colclough lives and works in the West Midlands, he writes regularly for a number of websites, one day he will get round to writing a book for someone else to review.
Bad things happen in threes is an urban myth, isn't it? Amy, Ila and Eve might argue differently. All three have lost their families in tragedies that fit two thirds of the rule and fear their deaths might be the piece that completes the picture. The only clue to what is going on each has is journal written by her predecessor that might be a warning, a work of fiction, or both.
In this assured debut Sam Ripley plays unsettling tricks using the superstition we all think ourselves too sophisticated to believe in. Adding to this the ability of the internet to act as a breeding ground for conspiracy theories. All three protagonists might be paranoid, but that doesn't mean someone, or something, isn't out to get them. The ambiguity around just what dials the dramatic tension up to twelve.
As narrators they are also inherently unreliable, elaborating on and undercutting the story they’ve been told in a way that adds to their uneasy confusion and that of the reader.
This is a promising debut from a writer with a truly original imagination. Its quality is shown in the fact that after reading it you might find yourself taking extra care to be polite to magpies and avoiding cracks in the pavement.
