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Jump to navigationJump to searchParallel Lines by Steven Savile (view source)
Revision as of 09:55, 24 February 2017
, 09:55, 24 February 2017no edit summary
Adam is not just having a bad day, but a bad year. He has been diagnosed with a degenerative and incurable disease. With little time left to live he wants to ensure his disabled son is looked after, but this requires money, a lot of money. The kind of amounts that a bank would have. Adam sets out to rob a bank, but in doing so interweaves his life with a group of hostages that may be more on his side than you would think.
There is something pleasant and old fashioned about elements of ''Parallel'' that makes it feel like a Hitchcock film or Agatha Christie novel. The bulk of the story is told within the four walls of a bank. A set number of characters are introduced and between them they must think of a way to cover up a crime. At its best the book relishes in this as the characters have on the hoof ideas that will see them all bond as a group.
However, this is not how Savile wanted to tell the story and to justify the books name – ''Parallel Lines'', he has structured it so that the narrative bounces from the present in the bank, to the time leading up to it. Almost every character in the story is fleshed out and we get a glimpse into their motives; Adam may be the main character, but all of the people in the bank have a role to play. When done correctly the split narrative can work, but here it gets a little cumbersome. This is highlighted towards the end when the structure becomes traditional again and the pace of the book picks up greatly. The final elements of the story are by far the best.
It may have been that Savile had a pleasant, but slightly dull, story to begin with and by playing with the structure he hoped to spice things up. This does mean that we are given more hindsight into characters than the normal crime book, but it also means that everyone is catered for a little, but perhaps not enough. One character in particular engages in an incident that feels a little too cold. Their actions are possibly justified in their backstory, but this was not quite fleshed out enough to make it believable.
