Wayward Pines: the trilogy

The latest books I've been reading are a trilogy - Pines (The Wayward Pines Trilogy, Book 1). Here's the Booklist blurb at Amazon ...

Ethan Burke is on his way to the small town of Wayward Pines to find two fellow federal agents who have gone missing. He has a bad car accident on the edge of town, waking up in the hospital and not at all sure of what is going on. The psychiatrist on staff tells him that he has suffered a brain injury and warns him not to leave, but he takes off anyway. The town sheriff is less than helpful, and, with no ID or money, Burke can’t reach his superior or his wife, and he starts fearing for his sanity (reminiscent of Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island). Matters turn ominous when Burke finds the ravaged body of one of the missing agents and realizes he needs to run for his life. Clearly, despite the idyllic beauty of Wayward Pines, something is seriously out of kilter: a helpful bartender disappears, picnicking mothers turn homicidal, and seemingly innocent children display maniacal tendencies. The suspense builds to an almost unbearable point, culminating with a twist that ratchets it up even further. Fans of Stephen King, Peter Straub and F. Paul Wilson will appreciate this genre-bending, completely riveting thrill ride, which mixes suspense, horror, science fiction and dystopian nightmare all rolled up into one unputdownable book.

The books were adapted to the tv series, Wayward Pines, and it was through watching the tv series that I came upon the books. The book would probably be classified as somewhere as horror/thriller/science fiction, with violence, sex, language that would get a mature audiences rating if it were on tv ... there were some bits I had to skip as too violent. The "big secret" of the story is revealed in episode 5 of the tv series and fairly early on in the book, so I guess it's ok to mention it here ... avert your eyes if you'd rather not know ...

- spoilers -

The reason people have been mysteriously waking up in Wayward Pines and cannot leave is that a millionaire scientist, fearing a coming ecological apocalypse, has abducted them, put them into suspended animation for 2,000 years, and has awakened them in a protected environment to endure the survival of the species. Complications ensue ;)

You can listen to the audio version of book one of the trilogy at YouTube ...