The Game – Scott Kershaw
Across the globe, five strangers receive a horrifying message from an unknown number.
THE PERSON YOU LOVE MOST IS IN DANGER.
To save them, each must play The Game – a sinister unknown entity that has a single rule: there can only be one winner.
IF YOU LOSE, YOUR LOVED ONE WILL DIE.
But what is The Game – and why have they been chosen?
There’s only one thing each of them knows for sure: they’ll do anything to win…
WELCOME TO THE GAME. YOU’VE JUST STARTED PLAYING.
I recieved a review copy of The Game from the publishers through Netgalley.
A debut thriller from Scott Kershaw which sees five strangers facing a race against time. Each of the five is playing The Game to save one of their loved ones, each is aware the price of failure will mean the one they love will die. But what is The Game and how will they determine the winner?
That is a terrific hook for me – a thriller which introduces five characters and immediately throws them into the worst situation of their lives. It gives that instant gratifying feeling of grabbing the reader’s attention from the outset then taking them on a breakneck journey into chaos. The “players” in the game come from around the world but are required to converge in the UK by a specificed time. For the players in the US and on mainland Europe this will present something of a challenge but with the stakes so high they simply can’t even consider failure.
The action begins in America where a young child goes missing from the appartment through the night. His mother had been looking after him but the boy seems to have slipped out while she was distracted. It is only when she starts receiving text messages which make it clear where her son actually is that the reality of her predicament kicks in. Her son is gone and if she tells anyone then the people that have taken him will kill him.
While readers come to terms with this situation another drama is unfolding. A man who has been at a hockey match with his friend finds that friend is now in danger if he does not play The Game. A young mother who is struggling to keep her life under any form of control, her husband doesn’t look at her any longer, her young children are constantly demanding and even the family dog seems to be making her life challenging. Then The Game lands and her understanding of challenging will really take on meaning.
That’s just three of the players in the game but there are more and each knows that there can be only one winner – so what could happen when they all converge on a single point to see how the game is going to unfold? Well to tell would spoil the enjoyment of reading The Game but this is an intense ride and even when Scott Kershaw takes us away from the five players there are other plots (another Game?) to add depth and muddy the waters too.
Reading The Game was lots of fun with some moments which also caused me upset or an anxiousness for the predicament of the characters. I really enjoyed how the story resolved the threads and found I was still thinking about some of the characters a week or so after I had finished reading. All too often I put down a book, move on and don’t give it a second thought – this means The Game managed to cut-through my “goldfish memory” and that’s always a good endorsement. Well worth watching out for this one.
The Game is published by Harper Collins on 12 May 2022 and you can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-game/scott-kershaw/9780008530877